LONDON -- "Britain risks becoming a mongrel land"; "Britain will become a foreign land to most of the British": two thoughts from the Tory Party uttered in the past few weeks, one from a back-bench MP of little repute (John Townend), the other from the Tory Party leader, William Hague, whose reputation, never high, is now clonking along the bottom of the public stream.
The response to these comments tells you more about Britain today than do the two original remarks. It was not relaxed. It was not liberal. It was frightened. And then, after a few furious and panic-stricken days, it was more calm and mocking. Britain's liberal ruling political class does not overtly fear black people, or immigrants, or aliens. They fear the racism of their own white voters. They fear that if a racist remark is dropped into the public mind it will instantly contaminate the whole and destroy liberal democracy.
But as that class has discovered in the last week or two, things have moved a long way since white racism could overpower democracy in the 1970s. In those days, housing and education policies across the land were quietly skewed by white officials in order to keep up the appearance, if not the reality, of white privilege. In those years, the first of mass immigration from the Indian subcontinent, any state provision for colored immigrants caused an uproar, especially where there was a shortage of good housing. Housing allocation policies were largely kept secret because it seemed impossible to have an open discussion about them; the debate would be destroyed by the white anger and grievance, and by the torrents of racist abuse that terrified white officials with its violence and irrationality. Those were the early days of the radio call-in program, when the program managers learned not to allow racists access or their verbal violence would scupper the show. So certainly, democracy, open government, free speech, all suffered because of racism and the fear of racism.