P.M. moves to cool race row

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 9

P.M. moves to cool race row

NZPA London The British Labour Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan) has offered to hold allparty talks on immigration, which has recently become a heated political issue. During noisy exchanges in the House of Commons, Mr Callaghan said that without an all-party agreement, race could “distort British society with hatred.” The Conservative Opposition leader (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) raised the race issue in a television interview last month, calling foa “clear end” to immigration to assuage fears among Britons they might be swamped by immigrants. Mr Callaghan’s offer of party talks with her and the Liberal leader (Mr David Steel) was a rare move, because joint meetings usually take place only on subjects on which the parties broadly agree, such as Northern Ireland policy. His offer is also seen as cunning because it moves to take immigration out of party politics, and making it harder for Mrs Thatcher to gain political capital out of it during the run-up to the election expected later this year.

Mr Steel immediately accepted the offer of talks, but Mrs Thatcher said she i preferred to wait for a report, expected in April, from an ail-party committee which is studying immigration and race. A tough anti-immigrant stance by a Conservative government may lead to accusations from the Eastern bloc that Britain was violating the Helsinki agreement on human rights, the former British Prime Minister (Mr Ted Heath) has said. Commentators have reported murmurings of discontent amongst the liberal wing of the Conservative Party over the strong Thatcher line on the sensitive immigrant issue, but Mr Heath’s attack brought the alternative Tory view into the open. Mr Heath has opposed Mrs Thatcher’s hard line, saying that all the powers to control their inflow were settled by a law passed in 1971 and nothing more was needed. Mrs Thatcher’s line is credited with boosting the Tories in opinion polls so that where they were 2 per cent behind Labour a month ago, they are now 11 per cent ahead.