The leaked Home Office document detailing the inherent racism of British immigration policy from 1950 to 1981 is shameful (Windrush scandal caused by ‘30 years of racist immigration laws’ – report, 29 May). However, it will surprise no one familiar with postwar immigration policy. There is, for example, at least one surprisingly explicit admission of racism that has been in the public domain for more than 50 years, and which demonstrates the peculiar ability for British racism to hide in plain sight.
Race Without Rancour (1968), a political analysis by the Tory MP and Daily Telegraph journalist William Deedes, talks candidly of the coded message behind the Tories’ 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act: “The Bill’s real purpose was to restrict the influx of coloured immigrants. We were reluctant to say as much openly. So the restrictions were applied to coloured and white citizens in all Commonwealth countries – though everybody recognised that immigration from Canada, Australia and New Zealand formed no part of the problem.”
Paul McGilchrist
Colchester, Essex
• As a mixed-race teenager with a dad who came from Hong Kong in 1974 aged seven, I have to agree with Diane Abbott’s article about the way Britain has had racist immigration policies for decades, no matter which party is in charge (The truth is out: Britain’s immigration system is racist, and always has been. Now let’s fix it, 30 May). My dad’s family officially become British citizens as opposed to British overseas subjects in the 1980s because otherwise they’d have been subject to lengthy bureaucratic processes.
I never thought that I would be so glad to see my grandparents’ British passports until I saw the increasing tolerance of xenophobia in this country. Something that I see a lot with white people who are nostalgic for the empire is how they despise immigrants, despite immigration being part and parcel of colonising (and often destroying) other nations.
David Chan
Belper, Derbyshire
• Rosie Harvey-Coggins is right to say that a white man could learn about colonial history by reading Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Letters, 27 May). But I’ve always found first-hand testimony far more powerful than words on a page. At school, my children were moved by visits from Holocaust survivors in a way that would not have been possible through a history book.
Personal recall is, of course, distressing for the individual, but is such an effective way of getting a message across. We therefore need people who are brave enough to testify in this way. Why otherwise do we encourage victim impact statements? How else can we learn from the past if nobody is prepared to share their experience of it?
Alison Simmons
Ealing, London
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.
