Heroes and Villains - Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State

Steve Cohen, 2001, 352 pages paperback £18.95

At a recent meeting of the Socialist Alliance activists debated whether it was wise to call for the abolition of all immigration controls. Those with faint hearts would be well advised to read this book. Steve Cohen argues that all immigration controls will by definition penalise black and Asian people: "Controls are inherently and institutionally racist." He has harsh words for those who seek a compromise with the current rules: "Abolishing controls would require a huge political movement. It might even require a revolution. However, attempts to reformulate controls as ‘fair’ would require a miracle. It is as futile as King Canute’s attempts to turn back the sea."

Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State is all in favour of the right of labour to migrate. The rich can always find new markets or new places to build factories, while workers are denied the same right to move. But the real interest of this book is not so much the theoretical argument against controls but practical steps campaigners, lawyers and people working in the public sector can take to defend the people who are facing deportation.

Benefits and housing workers, teachers, lecturers and social workers can all find themselves charged with the task of enforcing these racist laws. Cohen gives examples of where this has already happened, in Hackney council, University College London Hospital and elsewhere.

The author is a socialist and has a clear sense of the total framework within which the law operates. He is sceptical about the role of the family, and he develops some interesting points about the relationship between the welfare state and immigration controls (both of which have developed at roughly the same time). But such theoretical flourishes are few. This is the most practical book you could imagine. Each chapter includes case studies and suggests how a campaign around them could work.\

Cohen’s book has its villains. Chief among them are the men and women who run the system in which people can be denied the right to move because of where they live or where they work, because of whether they are married, because of who they have married. The following quotes are taken from an internal report published by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in 1994: "It’s another Nigerian wedding. All Somalis are liars. Poles are white Nigerians. Turks just have a different moral code when it comes to telling the truth."

The book also has its heroes, first among them the men and women who have campaigned to stay, and second their allies in the labour movement. The front cover shows Anwar Ditta, one of the best known figures of the first generation of anti-deportation campaigns. We see her marching with socialists and others to demand that her children should be allowed to enter Britain. The back cover shows the same woman surrounded by friends when the campaign had won.

Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State reminds us that there is a tradition of resistance against racism. but the book goes further than that, offering practical advice to keep that tradition alive.

Dave Renton