Why does the Labour Party push racism?

A protest for migrant workers in 2016 (Pic: Guy Smallman)

Shabana Mahmood ­previously declared her support for a ­“general amnesty for ­undocumented migrants”.

But the now home secretary has unveiled plans to steal jewellery from refugees as part of a crackdown on “illegal immigration”.

This turnaround isn’t just due to Mahmood’s lack of principles—it stems from the logic of Labourism. And it’s far from the first time Labour has fuelled anti-migrant racism.

The Labour Party was set up as the political expression of the trade union bureaucracy—a group that ­negotiates with the bosses on their behalf.

It represents the aspirations of workers, but also must prove to the bosses that they are a safe pair of hands to oversee the economy.

Many Labour voters and supporters and some of its politicians are anti-racists. But for Labour ­governments in office, their ­priority is to manage capitalism.

Ultimately, this means Labour must make the “national interest” its top priority.

The logic of Labourism means that whatever is happening in the streets or in the workplaces, what happens in elections and in parliament will be more important.

Like other reformist ­parties, Labour will always put its efforts into trying to win votes. It must get more MPs elected and take power through parliament—even if this means ­shifting rightwards.

It’s not that politicians or the party as a whole suddenly become racist when they get elected. It’s that the logic they play by justifies toning down radical politics in order to try to pull in more voters.

When Labour gets into ­government, it attempts to appeal to the “national interest”. But there is no shared interest between workers and bosses, tenants and landlords.

Labour ­politicians, even the most anti-racist, have faced enormous pressures to bow capitulate to racism. This has been the case throughout Labour’s history.

The first Labour cabinet, elected in 1924, included an engine driver, the son of a weaver and two miners.

But, despite their ­backgrounds, Labour found itself promoting the idea of a shared national interest. In the 1924 election, the Conservatives said Labour would “let them all come”. In retaliation, Labour tried to prove that it had ­naturalised fewer foreigners than the Tories.

It stopped opposing ­immigration controls to compete with the Tories, but ­maintained that it was against “harsh” controls.

But Labour’s racism against migrants is contested. The relationship of capitalism and racism is highly contradictory because the system has two core needs.

It needs a constant supply of labour to make profits, but it must also divide ­workers to weaken any resistance from them. Ramping up racism against those who come to Britain “illegally” turns workers against each other rather than against the capitalist system.

It also allows politicians to create the idea of “good” or “deserving” migrants who ­contribute to the economy. That is why Mahmood harks on about how Britain will continue to “welcome people who contribute”.

The Second World War exposed this contradiction. With huge numbers of workers sent to the killing fields of Europe, Britain’s ruling class had to maintain industry. They sponsored about 250,000 workers displaced from across Europe to work in Britain.

Again, in the 1950s-60s, there was large-scale immigration from the Commonwealth. Some 200,000 migrants came to Britain, mainly from the Caribbean, between 1954-61. In 1961, Harold Macmillan’s Tory government introduced the Commonwealth Immigration Act. The Trinidadian-born socialist Claudia Jones stated that the Act “established a second class citizenship status for West Indians and other ­Afro-Asian people in Britain”.

Labour responded with a passionate defence of the Commonwealth—but not with anti-racism. It said the Act countered the “central principle” that “the Commonwealth is largely dependent” on an “open-door” policy.

Throughout the 1960s, instead of opposing Tory racism, Labour entered into a competition to be the most racist, surrendering to the logic of Labourism.

When it won the 1964 ­election its first act was to cut off work vouchers for unskilled black workers, to prove it could be just as harsh as the Tories.

But even here the ­contradictions existed within the party. Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins championed the Race Relations Act of 1965—this made racial ­discrimination in public illegal.

In 1968, Tory Enoch Powell gave his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech. Labour, despite Jenkins’s principles, responded by rushing through a racist bill. It was designed to stop Kenyan Asians—who were being expelled from east Africa—from entering Britain on British passports.

In the mid-1970s, Labour governments implemented some of their most notorious racist policies, forcing Asian women coming to Britain to marry to undergo virginity tests.

Mass unemployment and government cuts provided fertile ground for a fascist movement to grow. The Nazi National Front (NF) marched across Britain in a campaign of terror in the 1970s and started making electoral gains.

Though some Labour ­supporters were part of ­confronting the fascists head on, the party pandered to the right and scapegoated immigrants in a hope to win voters.

Throughout the 21st ­century, the contestation within Labour over racism continued. Tony Blair had a contradictory ­relationship with immigration.

On the one hand, he wanted British capitalism to have the workers it needed. On the other, he needed racism to divide workers.

The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2002 ­introduced more restrictions on migration such as a citizenship test and more powers to detain and deport people. Labour clamped down on those seeking asylum but protected economic migrants.

Gordon Brown, the next Labour leader, infamously pushed “British jobs for British workers” in 2007. He spread the lie that foreign ­workers stole jobs “native” British people deserve and undercut wages. The slogan was backed up by conservative trade union ­leaders like Unite general ­secretary Derek Simpson.

Labour capitulated to the right, justifying all the times the fascists of the NF had tried to force Jewish, black or Asian workers out of their jobs.

Brown’s use of an old racist slogan was cheered by the British National Party, which replaced the NF as the main fascist party in the 1990s.

The BNP took the opportunity to pump out racist propaganda while posing as supporting strikes.

The next Labour leader Ed Miliband carried on singing this tune with what he called “One Nation Labour”. It was an open commitment to the national interest over class—where Brown left off.

Labour leaders think they can win votes by being right wing—but when it wins it is because it presents an ­alternative to the right. And it has lost when it appears to be no ­different to them.

The Labour leadership under Jeremy Corbyn did rebut some of the party’s racism. His first speech as leader in 2015 was a powerful defence of refugees.

He criticised governments across Europe for not doing enough for Syrian refugees amid “a crisis of humanity”.

He added, “There is no ­contradiction between working for peace across the world and doing what is necessary to keep us safe.”

But Corbyn was under immense pressure from within his party and from the right to give in to the logic of Labourism. This pressure forced even an extremely principled anti-racist to capitulate to the right and say that migration had to be ­“managed” in order to be “fair”.

Ultimately, Labour will always promote the idea that British born workers have a common interest with their bosses because of their devotion to parliamentary power.

The idea of the national ­interest portrays the major divisions in society as being between different nationalities and races.

It creates false competition for jobs, resources and political dominance, rather than showing the differences between workers and bosses.

We are seeing this right now. Labour is hounding ­immigrants and spouting racism in an attempt to win back voters from Reform UK.

But Labour is losing voters because of its complicity in the genocide in Palestine and its austerity mark 2.

And now, people are turning away in disgust because Labour has stopped even giving lip ­service to anti-racism.

Ultimately, the Labour Party and the logic of Labourism will always concede to the racist right. It will always defend British capitalism over anything else.

Socialists need to fight for an alternative to Labour’s vile racism—an alternative that looks to unity among workers and against bosses.