"On September 11th, I sat in the President's chair at the Trades
Union Congress and announced that a terrorist plane had crashed into the twin
towers in New York. In response, Congress pledged that, as trades unionists,
they would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters in the
war against terrorism.
"What we did not sign up to war a war against freedom, liberty,
democracy and a war against asylum seekers.
"We certainly did not sign up to a war against Islam.
"Whilst the whole nation saw the attack as a tragedy, it is now clear
that the government also saw it as an opportunity to re-construct the relationship
between state and citizen; to roll back the debate about how best to confront
racism; to prove Labour can be nastier to asylum seekers than the Tories.
In a time of terror, of course, the first duty of the state is to give maximum
protection and defence to its citizens. But, in defending the citizen, there
is always a balance to be struck between the citizens' freedom, liberty and
democracy and the legitimate defence of the state. Above all, any action taken
must command respect, confidence and acceptance from all sections of the community
and must be seen to be just, fair and even-handed.
"However, when the police in riot-great, in the full glare of the TV
cameras, hammer down the door of a mosque where the Ahmadi family had taken
sanctuary against unlawful deportation, the question must be asked: is this
British justice?
"Imagine if President Mugabwe had sent riot squads to smash down the
door of the Anglican church in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, how would the British
press and international community have reacted?
"It has been ten long years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered simply
because he was black. The cries for justice have gone unanswered.
"However, the nation put its trust in the MacPherson Enquiry. MacPherson
repaid that trust by shining a light into the dark corners of racism; exposing
the daily experience of racism of Britain's black and ethnic minority citizens;
and identifying and accepting that institutional racism exists right across
British society.
"But, a decade on, the very concept of the institutional racism, has
been openly questioned by the current Home Secretary, who recently claimed
that institutional racism was a slogan which missed the point. To say that
institutional racism is a slogan is an insult to the intellectual integrity
of Lord MacPherson and an insult to the memory of Stephen Lawrence.
"Margaret Thatcher once told us that there was no such thing as society
and that people were being swamped in their communities. Now, a Labour Home
Secretary tells us that institutional racism is just a slogan and that communities
are being swamped. That's not just an echo from the past, that is the language
of the BNP. I did not accept the insulting term 'swamping' from a Tory Minister
and I will not accept it from a Labour Minister.
"Institutional racism is not a slogan if you are the young Asian in Bradford
who felt oppressed by the criminal justice system and described as whingers
by the Home Secretary.
"Nor is it a slogan if you are from Jamaica or India queuing for a visa
to visit the UK on the black list while you watch the white list from Canada,
Australia, New Zealand coming and going at will.
"It is not a slogan if your name is Doreen or Neville Lawrence, as you
watch the state denying you justice for the murder of your son. The Home Office
has never been comfortable with Lord McPherson's report. The Metropolitan
Police have never been comfortable with the principle of institutional racism
because they wake up to see it in the mirror every morning.
The Home Secretary's outburst was a calculated attempt to bury the MacPherson
Report and, once and for all, take race off the agenda. The failure of our
politicians to stand-up and be counted on the issue of race gives strength
to the BNP. When politicians use terms such as 'swamping' and denigrate the
culture of black and Asian citizens, the BNP hears a signal of permission
to attack black and Asian communities.
"History has shown that you cannot appears the racist - you have to stand
up to them. The labour movement has had a proud record of fighting racism
- it confronted Mosley's Black Shirt gangs in Cable Street and ten years ago,
when the BNP reared its ugly head by winning a seat on Tower Hamlets Council.
We drew a line in the sand and confronted the racists.
"We cannot run an immigration policy based on concessions to the reactionary
right in the mistaken belief that it's what the people want. People are not
voting BNP because of a major influx of asylum seekers, they are voting BNP
in northern towns because their communities are steeped in poverty and social
deprivation. The Labour government must tackle these issues head on.
"The government must address the issue of social exclusion - not pander
to the politics of fear. You can never appease the racist because, by their
very politics, they are emotional blackmailers. The more you concede, the
greater the demands become.September 11th was seen as an opportunity by the
Government to push back the boundaries of our liberty. How else do we explain
the 'snooper's charter' on e-mail traffic; proposals for national ID cards
and a national police force; interfering in prison sentencing; eroding the
principle of innocence in our courts and introducing an anti-terrorism Act
which views every immigrant as a potential threat to national security?
"The Home Office is intent on swapping Labour's liberal-minded traditions
of liberty, democracy, tolerance and justice for cheap and nasty populism.
"When they argue that Britain might have to withdraw from the European
Convention on Human Rights they give a green light to every despot in the
world. When they call for refugees to be locked up, interrogated by the security
services and denied the right to a fair appear then they become human rights
abusers themselves. When they declare that they want to halve the number of
asylum seekers, regardless of whether the 50 per cent denied entry have a
genuine claim, then they abandon both natural justice and due process.
"When they defend their populist rhetoric by raising the spectre of public
backlashes, they don't ease genuine fears or address real concerns, they simply
help to foment it.
Today's populist policies are tomorrow's race hate victims. They guarantee
that the so-called 'asylum crisis' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The
responses are unworkable ideas, short-term gimmicks and flawed legislation.
"The government's latest policy to deny even basic food and shelter to
asylum seekers who claim late has been thrown out by the Courts. Like the
voucher system. It is wrong, inhumane and must go.
"Let's inject some honesty and perspective into the asylum debate. The
UK is not being engulfed by a human tidal wave of refugees. Nor is it a so-called
'soft touch' and 'welfare paradise' that makes it the destination of choice
for every refugee.
"It is time for rational thinking, not opportunism and to accept that
asylum is not just a political issue: it's a moral one. No civilisation worthy
of the name can turn its back on those in fear of their lives. Human rights
should never stop at a border. As Britain and the US prepare to rain bombs
on Baghdad, how many refugees will the US and Britain take?
"The answer is not to send people back to poverty or fear, but to accept
responsibility for the consequences of our own policies.
"This debate must be informed by the reality of today's world. You can't
go around the world, raid and pillage the resources of other nations in the
name of building your own economy and, when the dispossessed from those countries
turn up on your doorstep, simply say, 'go away, we are full up.'
"The strongest economy this world has ever known, the US, was built on
the dynamism and determination of migrants from all parts of the globe.
"The Labour government should tear down the barriers of racial discrimination
by embracing, rather than rejecting, the Macpherson Report. I want to see
it defending the advancing our civil liberties and human rights, not engaging
in an incremental attack of them. I also want to see support for a credible,
humane approach to asylum - not a populist stance which reacts to the latest
headline or opinion poll."