[The SS men could not have known what…]

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The SS men could not have known what had hit them. Had they been reading the British press for the past two or three years they must have thought that their arrival in Britain would go unremarked.

The record of the newspapers on racial tension in this country is one of consistent support for immigration laws and hysteria at the number of black people in Britain. So , maybe racısm was all right-if not genocide.

The storm that greeted them has been noticeable not just for its ferocity but for its direction.

It has been the voice of the Sun, the Express and the Daily Mail which has shouted as loudly as any.

The only attacks on the Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, have been that he was incompetent in his banning.

The Times said he had been made to look foolish' but that "he was probably men in".

The Sun said "It was an incredible blunder to allow ex-Nazi SS officer Hubert Meyer to hold a Press conference before being kicked out of Britain."

The Daily Mail called it "ludicrously inept".

These opinions must be questioned. Rees made the exclusion order under the racist 1971 Immigration Act. Rees is the Home Secretary who used the same Act to expel Philip Agee and Mark Hosenball last year for writing about the activities of the CIA.

He is the same Home Secretary who pursues, along with the whole Labour Cabinet, action against the tamilies of black residents in this country-under the same act which he has now used to ban the Nazis.

And he is in charge of the equally repressive Prevention of Terrorism Act, which has been used to exclude Irish visitors.

In using the 1971 Immigration Act against the Nazis future of left exclusion wingers.

And, like the Public Order Act, token action taken against fascists or neofascists has always been directed as a lever against the left.

It is the task of the working class to deal with the fascists. We do not ask a coalition government to do it for us.

The effect of the ringing editorials was weakened by the knowledge that Colonel Meyer was being driven round London by ITN and by the Daily Express.

There is not a single national newspaper which actually boycotted the Press conference.

Socialists who face ban-! nings in future can expect no such chauffeur service from Fleet Street. If the Daily Mail: gets its way there will be no chance.

"If a liberal minded [!] country like ours can't deploy its powers of exclusion and deportation deftly and with the minimum of fuss, it had better not deploy them their actions workers must demand these 'lefts' follow through their claimed support for the firemen, and organise a joint declaration that they will withdraw all parliamentary support for the Lib-Lab coalition.

At the same they Skinner Two journalistsDuncan Campbell and Crispin Aubrey-and former Signals corporal