After WW II and in the early 50s, the few dark strangers in the streets of London were greeted with a smile by the English. The dark faces were young students and enjoyed a status, which entitled them to some consideration. The traumatic experience of the war was still fresh and the English had not forgotten the contribution of the dark strangers from the colonies to the defeat of Nazi Germany, whose proclamation of superiority was anathema to liberal Europeans.

But, beneath the smile, there was a paternalism, which denied the coloured colonials a level playing-field. The first shock to the latter came, when faced with the search for accommodation. Any inquiry about the advertised empty room would meet with a polite refusal of ?just gone? when the dark student came face to face with the white landlady. But this was small beer compared to what was to follow later when Indians, Pakistanis and West Indians came in droves.

A reaction started which, by the end of 1961, took the shape of an open campaign against coloured immigrants. One MP, Cyril Osborne raised the alarm. ?This is a white man?s country?, he proclaimed in October 1961, ?and I want it to remain so? and, in December 1964, the Spectator reported his hatred in crude language: ?Those who so vehemently denounce the slogan ?Keep Britain white? should answer the question: do they want to turn it black? If unlimited immigration were allowed, we should ultimately become a chocolate colonial Afro-Asian society. That I do not want.?

The total immigration at the end of 1960 was 125,400. Yet the working class was already reacting against their presence. ?There were many examples of strikes and other forms of industrial action against the employment or promotion of coloured workers,? wrote Paul Foot in his book Immigration and Race in British Politics.

The fear, however, was unjustified because Britain was short of labour and immigration was related to vacancies. Fortunately, there were liberal-minded politicians, on both sides of the House, who refused to be dragged into the dangerous rhetoric of Cyril Osborne and his likes. In those days, everyone born in the Commonwealth was a British citizen. The call for a restriction was resisted until 1962, when the third reading of the Immigration Bill became law on 1 June the same year. Thus the stage was set for a policy of control, which hit the coloured immigrants the hardest. The Bill, which included the Irish, was later amended to exempt them, the opposition condemned the amendment. The Irish, they said, were the fig leaf ? now ripped away ? of the Tory colour-bar policy. Immediately after the Bill became law, Commonwealth immigration dropped drastically.

The Act did stem the flow because it made it more difficult for workers to come into the country. The Act was also the opening gambit for other measures soon to follow to eventually remove the right of colonials to free entry into the United Kingdom. The whole policy on immigration underwent a total overhaul after the defeat of Labour in a by-election at Smethwick in 1965, where the Labour candidate, Patrick Gordon Walker, a Foreign Secretary, lost to one obscure Peter Griffiths of the Conservative Party.

The election was fought on the single issue of coloured immigrants. The seat was Labour for many years. The Conservative played on the fear and sentiments of the working class who seemed ?more affected by the influx of immigrants?. Although Griffiths won a small majority, the psychological damage was done. Immigration had become an issue in politics and no party could afford to ignore it.

Both Labour and Conservatives accelerated the process of liberalisation of colonies and, within a few years after Smethwick, whatever was left of colonial possessions was liquidated. I do not think that I should go through the different legislation culminating, after various amendments, in the British Nationality Act of 1981. I would rather deal with the present situation of race relations in Great Britain. It is to the credit of both central and local authorities that they set up several bodies to promote better relations between the coloured and the whites and to act as watchdogs for discrimination cases on grounds of race or colour.

Between Smethwick and the new millennium, the flow of immigrants, after a period of relative lull, continued. Those settled were allowed to bring in families. A good number of visitors stayed and later qualified for citizenship. Mauritius sent thousands of young men and women to do nursing who stayed because they were offered employment and attractive salaries far above the home rate. Even now at the time of writing, hundreds of foreigners are entering Britain to stay. As one of the signatories of the Geneva Convention on refugees, Britain had to accept large contingents from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, etc. The presence of all these dark faces was not welcomed by the average Britisher.

Although Enoch Powell?s sinister forecast of the rivers of blood did not happen, deep down every white Britisher was seething resentment that his country was being taken over by strangers with alien culture and values. The church steeples, proudly proclaiming two thousand years of Christian civilization, which adorned the skylines, had now to compete with the massive assault of mosques and temples squeezing within the narrow confines of Edwardian buildings.

But these vibrate with activities while the church next door is deserted. The English ?fish and chips? shops are on the verge of extinction. The British openly accept chicken ?tikka massala? as part of their culture. But this alienation is resented by the large majority. The presence of any Asian or Black family in a neighbourhood brings down the price of property because the Whites move out. In 2000, the Observer reported comments from Bradford residents about race relations: ?I say, let the Asians have Bradford and us whites can move out. I speak to many white people and when I ask them what they think about Bradford they all say: ?I want to move out to get away from the Pakkies?, stated one. My quote is one sample among many.

<B>by Satcam BOOLELL</B>