The UK was growing at a rate of about 5% per annum in the first half of the 1960s. There was no possibility of labour shortages crashing the economy and Britain would soon suffer an excess of labour and mass unemployment post baby boom and deindustrialisation.
I also entirely disagree with "ignorant racism" argument. The British people did not want immigration from the West Indies or from any other far flung place. They expressed their views on this repeatedly and robustly culminating in the late 1960s with huge popular support for Powell post speech in Birmingham. Why the majority felt that way mattered not. Their views ought to have been enacted. And as often turns out to be the case, the majority were right - or more right than left wing internationalists. Immigration once started is not just very difficult to stop but expands and without an off button one will eventually lose the country in much the same way that Savill Town in Dewsbury at close to 80% muslim, with life revolving around the Makazi Masjid Mosque, cannot seriously be described as English - other than it lies within the borders of what is referred to as England. One could take the position that this is an extreme and cannot happen elsewhere but only if one is poor with numbers. White British will be a minority in schools in less than a decade and there is a population explosion to the south of Europe which will really manifest in the next 10 -20 years.
We should expect a serious effect of Islam on politics by 2050 because Muslims dominate inner city constituencies. Many Labour MPs will lose their seats to Muslim parties.
“The Caribbean migrants were brought to Britain in the 1960s for the same reason as most other migrants: to keep down wage rates”.
Absolutely. The Australian Labor Party started out by fighting the practice of ‘blackbirding’; bringing Pacific Islanders to Queensland to work cane plantations as cheap labour. Today, it actively promotes the mass immigration of Indians and Chinese to Australia for the same purpose.
We didn’t import them, they came as economic chancers. The Windrush was to stop and bunker, so the company decided to advertise cheap fares to England.
The UK government had a recruitment campaign in the Caribbean.
"In 1960, Mr Powell became Minister of Health and encouraged the recruitment of West Indian nurses to help staff the National Health Service. Mr Duncan Sandys was Minister for the Commonwealth from 1960 to 1964 and said not a word about the need to keep the blacks out. In 1963, Mr Sandys promised the Kenyan Asians, as a reward for their opposition to African independence, that they could if ever they liked come to Britain free from immigration control. The bosses in the factories wanted more workers, and the Tories in the House of Commons were determined to let the workers come."
In theory, but when children were born into guest worker families, they had the choice of citizenship in West Germany. The East had a similar programme for Vietnamese and other Communist workers.
The Windrush generation was important to the Labour Party insofar as it affected electoral politics in certain constituencies, such as Tottenham and Brixton. I believe that, and the political opportunity to score points against Theresa May's 'hostile environment' policy, was why Starmer was over-stating their numerical significance to Britain in your clip.
Your statistics are questionable, because for example page 4 of the 'NHS staff from overseas' document states "Nationality is self-reported & might sometimes reflect cultural heritage instead of country of birth".
Also the 1961 migrants not being in the 2011 census will reflect that many will have died of old age by then, as original Windrush migrants were already adults in 1948. They will have been outnumbered by their British-born descendants in recent decades.
However, the Windrush generation arrived in Britain at a time of acute labour shortages, and did make a contribution to the country.
Labour shortages drive up wages and improve productivity. The jury is out on the alleged benefit of fixing 'staff shortages'. Notice that Labour fixed the problem of workers complaining about foreign labour by making it illegal for working class style complaints about this in the 1965 Race Relations Act (which was about foreign labour, not just race).
Sometimes, but labour shortages can also crash an economy (see for example rural, depopulated Ireland). The 1958 Notting Hill riots were more than just complaints, and immigrants did suffer the consequences.
The first was an imperial attitude by employers and the governing classes. Many of these had returned from the colonies in the 50s and 60s. They had missed the changes of the 1930s and 40s in the UK. The classism of these people had to be seen to be believed, they saw the ordinary English as just another tribe to be governed and brought to heel.
The second was the influence of communism. Idiot intellectuals actually believed Soviet propaganda. Union leaders were mostly communist and harboured thoughts of revolutionary change.
The third was that the English had a strong national identity after suffering two world wars. However, they were very far from being uniformly racist. The Notting Hill Riots were partly to do with gangs and the police response to these. (Like the Brixton riots only 10 years later).
The synthesis used by the ruling class was to use 'racism' as cover for oppressing the working class with foreign labour in general. The ex-Imperialists hit the commies, racists and workers with 'race relations'. For them it was no different really from importing Tamils into Sri Lanka or Nigerians into Guyana etc.
It was only in the late 1980s that Labour shifted to Postmarxism and jumped on the migration bandwagon to achieve their Internationalist agenda (Trotskyism / international socialism became ascendant).
There was also the New Left influence and Pan-Africanism. You might be interested in my essay on reparations here on Substack. I also recommend the film A Hole in Babylon about the Spaghetti House Siege, it's on YouTube.
Those who landed from Empire Windrush landed in 1948. No one asked them to come. When they did land the government was aghast.
Yes, you are right. My points above were about events 10 years later.
The UK was growing at a rate of about 5% per annum in the first half of the 1960s. There was no possibility of labour shortages crashing the economy and Britain would soon suffer an excess of labour and mass unemployment post baby boom and deindustrialisation.
I also entirely disagree with "ignorant racism" argument. The British people did not want immigration from the West Indies or from any other far flung place. They expressed their views on this repeatedly and robustly culminating in the late 1960s with huge popular support for Powell post speech in Birmingham. Why the majority felt that way mattered not. Their views ought to have been enacted. And as often turns out to be the case, the majority were right - or more right than left wing internationalists. Immigration once started is not just very difficult to stop but expands and without an off button one will eventually lose the country in much the same way that Savill Town in Dewsbury at close to 80% muslim, with life revolving around the Makazi Masjid Mosque, cannot seriously be described as English - other than it lies within the borders of what is referred to as England. One could take the position that this is an extreme and cannot happen elsewhere but only if one is poor with numbers. White British will be a minority in schools in less than a decade and there is a population explosion to the south of Europe which will really manifest in the next 10 -20 years.
That combined with exodus out of Africa will certainly challenge some liberal assumptions
We should expect a serious effect of Islam on politics by 2050 because Muslims dominate inner city constituencies. Many Labour MPs will lose their seats to Muslim parties.
By 2100 the UK will be Muslim dominated at current reproduction rates. See https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/the-future-of-the-uk
“The Caribbean migrants were brought to Britain in the 1960s for the same reason as most other migrants: to keep down wage rates”.
Absolutely. The Australian Labor Party started out by fighting the practice of ‘blackbirding’; bringing Pacific Islanders to Queensland to work cane plantations as cheap labour. Today, it actively promotes the mass immigration of Indians and Chinese to Australia for the same purpose.
Australia needs a proper party of labour.
We didn’t import them, they came as economic chancers. The Windrush was to stop and bunker, so the company decided to advertise cheap fares to England.
The UK government had a recruitment campaign in the Caribbean.
"In 1960, Mr Powell became Minister of Health and encouraged the recruitment of West Indian nurses to help staff the National Health Service. Mr Duncan Sandys was Minister for the Commonwealth from 1960 to 1964 and said not a word about the need to keep the blacks out. In 1963, Mr Sandys promised the Kenyan Asians, as a reward for their opposition to African independence, that they could if ever they liked come to Britain free from immigration control. The bosses in the factories wanted more workers, and the Tories in the House of Commons were determined to let the workers come."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/foot-paul/1973/xx/racism.html
This is often conveniently forgotten.
Powell recanted. There was also a campaign for people to work on the buses but I cannot find any references. Both Tories and Labour are Internationalists. See https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/the-internationalist-adversaries
PS: the Germans only had guest workers and the Japanese used technology. Germany had returnable labour and Japan went for productivity https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Hourly-labour-productivity-in-Japan-the-Federal-Republic-of-Germany-and-the-United_fig1_227389507
In theory, but when children were born into guest worker families, they had the choice of citizenship in West Germany. The East had a similar programme for Vietnamese and other Communist workers.
The Windrush generation was important to the Labour Party insofar as it affected electoral politics in certain constituencies, such as Tottenham and Brixton. I believe that, and the political opportunity to score points against Theresa May's 'hostile environment' policy, was why Starmer was over-stating their numerical significance to Britain in your clip.
Your statistics are questionable, because for example page 4 of the 'NHS staff from overseas' document states "Nationality is self-reported & might sometimes reflect cultural heritage instead of country of birth".
Also the 1961 migrants not being in the 2011 census will reflect that many will have died of old age by then, as original Windrush migrants were already adults in 1948. They will have been outnumbered by their British-born descendants in recent decades.
However, the Windrush generation arrived in Britain at a time of acute labour shortages, and did make a contribution to the country.
Labour shortages drive up wages and improve productivity. The jury is out on the alleged benefit of fixing 'staff shortages'. Notice that Labour fixed the problem of workers complaining about foreign labour by making it illegal for working class style complaints about this in the 1965 Race Relations Act (which was about foreign labour, not just race).
Sometimes, but labour shortages can also crash an economy (see for example rural, depopulated Ireland). The 1958 Notting Hill riots were more than just complaints, and immigrants did suffer the consequences.
I agree that there was ignorant racism.
There were three factors.
The first was an imperial attitude by employers and the governing classes. Many of these had returned from the colonies in the 50s and 60s. They had missed the changes of the 1930s and 40s in the UK. The classism of these people had to be seen to be believed, they saw the ordinary English as just another tribe to be governed and brought to heel.
The second was the influence of communism. Idiot intellectuals actually believed Soviet propaganda. Union leaders were mostly communist and harboured thoughts of revolutionary change.
The third was that the English had a strong national identity after suffering two world wars. However, they were very far from being uniformly racist. The Notting Hill Riots were partly to do with gangs and the police response to these. (Like the Brixton riots only 10 years later).
The synthesis used by the ruling class was to use 'racism' as cover for oppressing the working class with foreign labour in general. The ex-Imperialists hit the commies, racists and workers with 'race relations'. For them it was no different really from importing Tamils into Sri Lanka or Nigerians into Guyana etc.
It was only in the late 1980s that Labour shifted to Postmarxism and jumped on the migration bandwagon to achieve their Internationalist agenda (Trotskyism / international socialism became ascendant).
There was also the New Left influence and Pan-Africanism. You might be interested in my essay on reparations here on Substack. I also recommend the film A Hole in Babylon about the Spaghetti House Siege, it's on YouTube.