ABSTRACT
‘This country has a proud record on good race relations. I am determined to do everything that I can to maintain that record. Firm control of immigration is vital to achieve that objective’, Michael Howard, Conservative Home Secretary, told the House of Commons in December 1995. 1 Defending the measures in his Asylum and Immigration Bill, the Home Secretary's oft repeated assertion that firm immigration controls are necessary for good race relations was no different from that used by his Labour predecessor when the foundations of current immigration and race relations policy were laid in the 1960s. ‘Immigration’, Roy Jenkins said, ‘should not be so high as to create a widespread resistance to obstruct the integration process’, 2 while his colleague, Roy Hattersley, coined the memorable phrase: ‘Without integration, limitation is inexcusable; without limitation, integration is impossible.’ 3
