Category: Commission for Racial Equality
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When the UK government tried to thwart an investigation of racism in the border control system
Today The Guardian reported that the Home Office refused to release an internal report on the history of the UK border control system which concluded that between the 1950s and 1980s, the border control system was designed to keep non-white people out of the country. This was not a surprise for many historians who have…
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After Grunwick: Trade unions and anti-racism in the 1980s
This is the latest post looking at the history of the turbulent relationship between the British labour movement and black and Asian workers in the post-war era, following on from posts on the Imperial Typewriters strike in mid-1974 and the Grunwick strike between 1976 and 1978. While Grunwick is seen as a turning point, there…
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The intersection of race, class and gender at the Grunwick strike
On 23 August, 1976, six workers went on strike at the Grunwick Photo Processing Lab in North-West London, beginning a strike that lasted for almost two years and involved thousands of people over the course of it. The Grunwick strike is now considered a turning point in the history of British trade unionism and race…
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Anwar Ditta and the discriminatory border control system
The following is based on an excerpt from our book Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control: Subject to Examination (Palgrave Macmillan). It discusses the case of Anwar Ditta, a British-Pakistani woman who fought the UK immigration control system for four years to get the authorities to allow her three children into the country. Only after…
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Guest post at Border Criminologies
This is a quick post to let people know that Marinella and I have written a short guest post outlining the findings of our new book, Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control, at the Border Criminologies blog. If you don’t already follow this blog, I recommend you do so!
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Out Now! Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control has been published
This is a quick post to announce that our new book Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control has been published by Palgrave Macmillan and hopefully should be ready to be shipped out soon. I know the hardback is costly, but we hope that people encourage their university, college or council library to…
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Deny, normalise and obfuscate: The Home Office in the 1980s and the abuse of South Asian women
The ‘missing’ files of the Home Office relating to an alleged child-sex ring given by Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens to Home Secretary Leon Brittan is not that surprising. We know that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office kept silent about a hundreds of thousands of files that were thought to be ‘missing’ or ‘destroyed’ during the decolonisation process…
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35 years since Southall 1979
23 April is the 35th anniversary of the Southall ‘riot’ when police violently attacked a counter-demonstration against the National Front in the West London district – an act of police violence that left dozens injured and one protestor dead. David Renton’s blog Lives Running has been documenting the aftermath of Blair Peach’s death at Southall…
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Forthcoming: Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control – Subject to Examination
I am pleased to announce that the forthcoming book by Marinella Marmo and myself, Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control: Subject to Examination, will be published in July by Palgrave Macmillan and is already available for pre-order! The description of the book on Palgrave’s website is: Race, Gender and the Body in…
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The left, the state and anti-racist legislation: The example of the CPGB
The Guardian Australia today featured a debate between two figures of the left, Alana Lentin and Antony Lowenstein, on whether Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) should be on the statute books, after the announcement by the new Liberal government that they would seek to repeal this section of the legislation. This has…
New Historical Express 