Professor Gus John | A marriage made in hell

November 2025 was 60 years since the Race Relations Act of 1965 came into force. That act is acknowledged as the first piece of legislation in the United Kingdom to address the prohibition of racial discrimination. It made it a civil offence, though not a criminal offence, to discriminate on the grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins.

It was a half-hearted piece of legislation, largely because there was, across the nation, the popular view that the state should not seek to curtail the Englishman’s right to discriminate.

Two major areas in which people faced racial discrimination, i.e., housing and employment, were not covered by the Act, despite the fact that a major lobby for anti-discrimination legislation was triggered by the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott. The Bristol Omnibus Company refused to employ black or Asian bus crews, on the grounds that such folk would be taking white people’s jobs and that white passengers would not want to ride buses operated by black drivers and conductors.

Prior to the Bristol Bus Boycott, there was also what became known as the ‘Beat the Ban Hike’, i.e., the marked increase in the number of migrants from Britain’s former colonies who were making sure they arrived in Britain before the expected ban on entry in 1962.

So, whereas in 1959 there were 21,550 New Commonwealth entrants and 58,300 in 1960, some 125,400 arrived in 1961, anticipating the restrictions of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962.

I arrived in the UK as a student in August 1964. Within weeks, politicians were taking to the hustings to woo the electorate in the upcoming general election of October that year. One such politician was the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate, Peter Griffiths. His pitch to the people in his Smethwick constituency was: “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour”.

The language of British racism was not yet sanitised. We were not used to hearing: ‘Go back where you came from, you effing N-word’.

The patriotic people of Smethwick clearly did not want ‘niggers’ as neighbours. Griffiths won his seat with a 7.2 per cent vote swing from Labour to the Conservatives, thus defeating the Shadow foreign secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker.

As a trusting newcomer, with a sanitised British education from one of the most prestigious schools in Grenada, I was not yet socialised into British political hubris. I struggled to understand, therefore, and I still do today, how someone who so openly incited his constituency to racial hatred, could qualify as a Member of Parliament to represent the people of Smethwick, ALL the people of Smethwick, including those “ni**ers”.

Before long, however, the new Labour government was appeasing the people of Smethwick and others across the land who might want to follow their example and defect from Labour, seeking to reassure them that it, too, had a concern about the number of would-be neighbours, racialised as “ni**ers”, that they might be expected to tolerate.

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

Yes, history does have a peculiar way of repeating itself, especially when we not only fail, but steadfastly refuse, to learn from it.

Sixty years later, we have Prime Minister Keir Starmer singing from the same song sheet as Reform and expressing his fear that Britain risks becoming “an island of strangers”, implying though not saying: “if any more are allowed to join those far too many strangers who are already here”. Yet, he is the same prime minister who entertains those “strangers” in Downing Street to celebrate the arrival of the Empire Windrush. What’s worse is that they go ‘skinnin teet’ with him, without a hint of irony.

Roy Hattersley, the new Labour Home Secretary, argued in the House, as the Bill that would become the 1965 Act was being discussed: “Without integration, limitation is inexcusable; without limitation, integration is impossible.”

Thus, was consummated the shotgun marriage between race and immigration, a marriage whose vows were renewed with every new piece of race relations legislation since 1965 and a marriage that’s destined to last longer than any other in history.

This marked the beginning of the process of the racialisation of immigration and of, not only placing immigration at the centre of British race relations, but keeping Britain ill at ease with itself.

The elephant in the room as far as race in Britain is concerned is the abject failure of the British state to deal with the legacy of empire. If Britain is to understand itself and be at ease with itself, it needs to see its past, its inglorious past, as its problem and not the people who have changed its demography, because its past also encompasses their past and defines their right to be here and their presence here.

Its past includes the history of eugenics in Britain and Europe and its role in framing racism and defining white supremacy and Britain’s self-definition and self-identity.

I believe that after 60 years and the 1965, 1968, 1976 and 2000 Race Relations Acts and the continuing levels of noncompliance with regulatory requirements with respect to eliminating racial discrimination, not only is a review of the Equality Act 2010 necessary, parliament must take urgent steps to safeguard the fundamental rights of black workers and impose more robust sanctions upon those who continue to discriminate and ruin the health, careers and life chances of employees on account of their race.

Given the extent to which the state itself places its settled Black and Global Majority population under the spotlight, especially as it is led by the ‘pied piper’ Nigel Farage down any number of rabbit holes, that population surely has a right to demand that the government take more robust action to root out race discrimination in employment.

Racism, discrimination and structural inequities intersect with wellness and impact the mental health of people in the workplace, as well as that of their families. Some people never recover from the trauma of race discrimination, harassment or abuse. In this sense, it robs individuals of their human dignity and affects their life chances, arguably no less than sexual predation on girls and women, especially as black victims of sexual harassment and abuse could suffer on account of both race and sex.

It is 57 years since the Race Relations Act 1968 outlawed racial discrimination in employment. Yet, black workers continue to be discriminated against, year on year. In my view, there is urgent need for a Race Discrimination Offenders Register, not unlike the Sex Offenders Register.

Such a register will be a wakeup call to those discriminating and is clearly long overdue. They would know that if they are found to have discriminated, they would suffer detriment and would be placed on such a register, so that they could no longer be responsible for managing any staff, teaching or supervising any students, or having any role that places them in contact with black folk.

The challenge for the British state is not to do with cost, infrastructure or with technical capacity, but with political will.

It’s the political will to ignore Reform and ‘pied piper’ Farage and say, boldly, the society does not see you, Black and Global Majority folk, as outsiders, as undesirable and unwanted strangers, ‘Othered’; unbelonging, undeserving, unentitled and anything but British, born here or not. The society sees and owns you as an integral part of itself, it acknowledges that when we talk about ‘the British people’, we are also talking about you.

We won’t let ‘pied piper’ Farage and Reform make us disown and betray you. We would defend your rights and civil liberties and acknowledge the debt, historical and contemporary, that this nation owes to you.

- Professor Augustine John is a Human Rights campaigner and Honorary Fellow at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com