ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the formation and organizational dynamics of the now defunct, international racial legislative subgroup. It addresses both the impediments that undermined the viability of the Parliamentary Black Caucus and the potential for future black legislative empowerment in Great Britain. Informal group theory provides the analytical framework for this assessment of the embryonic stage of minority parliamentary participation in England. The chapter also draws on the experience gleaned from the evolution and institutionalization of the Congressional Black Caucus which enhances insight of cross-national black legislative participation. Members of the Parliamentary Black Caucus explain that "the need for such a caucus in Britain derives from the fact that black representatives are in a minority and in a hostile environment which has never before had to confront the issues of race and race relations which the caucus has a duty and an obligation to raise".
