In the Guardian today:
Howe had written that the election of Johnson might trigger a mass exodus of older African-Caribbean migrants back to the West Indies.
Wadsworth wrote on his blog that McGrath responded: “Well, let them go if they don’t like it here.”
How sensitive we have become. It is not racist to respond to a particular question in this way. Would it be considered racist if a Labour Minister had responded to questions about the net emmigration of people born in the UK to places like France and Spain “well let them go”? I imagine such a conversation has been had, and I cannot believe anyone would get upset about it.
I respect Johnson very much, but he should have stood by his man; otherwise we are all at risk for making innocuous and non-racist comments.
If people who immigrated then choose to emmigrate because of the result of a democratic election, that’s not really the business of the electee. Especially one who has made it clear he is working for all Londoners.
I believe we should always attempt to reverse all aspects of a proposition to decide whether or not it is fair. And if the colour of the people, or the direction of flow were reversed, there would be no accusation of racism. None.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Well Gavin, you’d expect me as a liberal to be in favour of this, and you’d be right.
I suspect that you’re young enough not to remember this, but twenty years ago or so, that sort of wording - ‘let them go if they don’t like it here’ - was often used by the far right as a coded way of discussing emigration (1 m, by the way!) of former immigrants being forced not by law but by just making them uncomfortable with the life they could have here.
I am not for one second suggesting that this was what the person concerned meant - but it could have been read that way, both by people who would have nodded their heads in agreement, and by people who would have been alienated from the new Mayoral administration if nothing had happened.
Not every Tory is racist; these days the vast majority aren’t; but there are still quite a few around, and I think the Mayor was right to act to make a clear statement on where he stood vis a vis the different elements in his party.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
You’re right that a racist element could use that wording to ‘encourage’ the undesirables to ‘return home’ (none of the words in inverted commas actually makes sense, but you know what I mean).
But if we walk on egg shells then we don’t say what we mean. I want to be able to speak my mind as a politician and if someone deliberately misconstrues what I say, that should be tutted at by the listening masses, not jumped upon by everyone including the Right (formally the defenders of common sense).
No-one with any sense can believe that Johnson would welcome any exodus of people based on their skin colour and I believe Johnson knows how disingenious it would be to stereotype a colour in any case… But there you go. It’s not a sane world is it.