The PEP report took place when racial discrimination was increasing, but people’s attitudes towards racism were changing. The information gathered was authorised by the government so I do consider this source reliable if investigating the extent of racial discrimination in the late 1960’s.
- How useful are sources D, E and G to an historian investigating British attitudes to immigration in the late 1960’s?
Source D is an article from the British newspaper The Daily Mirror, February 1968 and refers to the Asian Immigrants entering Britain from Kenya. It states directly that ‘Britain now
faces the prospect of an uncontrolled flood of Asian Immigrants’. In the period from December 1967 to February 1968, 7000 Asians entered Britain, so on 23rd February 1968, the Labour government introduced an emergency Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, which was rushed through both houses of parliament and became law on 1st March. However, at this same time an anti-racist movement was introduced when the BPA, Black People’s Alliance was set up to protect and offer support to Black Immigrants. I do think that this source is useful to an historian investigating British attitudes towards immigration in the late 1960’s, but taking into account that it is an extract from a newspaper article we could assume that the information be biased and unreliable.
Source E would prove very useful to an historian investigating attitudes towards immigration in the late 1960’s because it is a famous speech by Enoch Powell, a member of the Shadow Cabinet. It became known as the ‘rivers of blood’ speech and predicted terrible consequences if immigration continued. In April 1968, whilst parliament debate new laws against racial discrimination, Enoch Powell made clear his views and opinions of black immigrants, trying desperately to brainwash the minds of unexpected victims. It contained references to other cultures, ‘engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre,’ but twisted them into sarcastic, racist remarks. The repetition of the word ‘mad’ enforces how strongly opinionated Enoch Powell was when it came to the subject of immigration and he was not afraid to speak his mind in public. The speech produced intense interest and anger amongst British society and many immigrants felt insulted and believed that their time in Britain was limited.
The purpose Of Source G was to expose Powell in a humorous form. The cartoon, by Nick Garland was from The Daily Telegraph published on January 19,1970, the same year as the General elections took place. Bearing in mind that the cartoon is from a newspaper we have to consider that the content of the source could be biased or contain exaggeration. Lots of people read newspapers, so an additional purpose of this source would be to attract a specific audience from the British society, namely those who were interested in politics or actually read the Daily Telegraph. In the cartoon, Enoch Powell is shown looking forward, which demonstrates to me that he is not looking back at what he is creating. He is depicted as sowing seeds that would produce a British KKK – an element of fear. The signs contain racist, prejudice and hatred remarks showing Powell’s personal opinion and views of immigration. Although this source could be considered useful, it has the limitation of being the attitudes/opinions of one man, therefore we cannot accept it as a generalisation as the cartoon shows no evidence that Enoch Powell had any public support.
All three sources would prove valuable to an historian investigating the British attitudes towards immigration in the late 1960’s, however they are all linked/related to Enoch Powell who was a highly opinionated man and completely against black immigration so these sources could be considered bias. Consequently a historian would have to collect information from other sources that opposed Enoch Powell and expressed the opposite attitude towards Black Immigration in the late 1960’s.
- ‘The British Society became increasingly intolerant of immigrants in the 1960’s’ Using all the sources and your on knowledge, explain whether you agree with this statement.
Using evidence from the available sources and my own knowledge I will show that the statement ‘ The British society became increasingly intolerant of immigrants in the 1960’s’ is true. Sources A and B are not useful as evidence to support my argument, but are still relevant to the statement. They are both linked together by relating to the government and I would consider them both reliable as they contain authoritative information. The government did not deal with the problem of immigration merely by imposing restrictions, but having noticed that immigration and discrimination was an ongoing problem it did try to provide equality for those already settled as British citizens. It conducted the PEP report, which concluded with interesting results and proved that no legislation currently protected black immigrants against discrimination.
Source C is a photograph of Kenyan Asians arriving at Gatwick in February 1968. You cannot gather a lot of information from the source, but from my own knowledge we already know that Asian immigrants became a problem in February 1968. The Kenyan government began discriminating against Asians with British passports in December 1967, so many lost their homes and chose to come to Britain, which led to an uncontrolled amount of Asian immigrants entering into Britain at this time. Sources D, E, F, G and H do support my argument that the British Society became increasingly intolerant of immigrants’ and consists of newspaper articles, speech, extracts from textbooks and a cartoon.
Sources E, F and G are mainly focused on Enoch Powell and his outrageous discriminating speeches. He caused great concern amongst other politicians and was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet for the ‘inflammatory tone of his racial remarks.’ Source F are both from 1968, and source G was published in a newspaper 2 years later. They all demonstrate Powell’s attitudes towards immigration in different contexts, but none actually show he gained or even had any support from the public. I would consider source E reliable, but would have
to question the reliability of sources F and G as they could have been altered or written to support a specific judgment towards immigration.
Source H is concentrating on the National Front that we know was set up in 1967 with its main aim to end immigration and repatriate black immigrants. It was from a textbook published in 2001, so the information could be bias or changed to suit a particular argument in the textbook, therefore the content could be considered unreliable.
The sources and my own knowledge conclude that the statement is true and suggests that although the government’s attitudes towards immigration and discrimination were changing during 1965-1970, there were still fascist groups (NF – 1967) determined to repatriate Black immigrants and end immigration to Britain, as well as racial speeches spoken in public by Enoch Powell insulting immigrants and going against the governments current views and laws.
So, in conclusion the statement ‘ The British society became increasingly intolerant of immigrants in the late 1960’s’ is true and I have used as much relevant information as possible to support the statement.
