With remarkable symmetry, 10 months after entering office, Harold Wilson’s government published an immigration white paper in 1965 reducing “vouchers” (or visas) for Commonwealth citizens from 20,800 a year to 8,500 and restricting them to skilled workers. “Without integration, limitation is inexcusable; without limitation, integration is impossible,” declared then-backbencher Roy Hattersley as he endorsed this approach. Cooper would argue no differently today.
George Eaton New Statesman 12th May 2025
Paul Foot produced a socialist critique of the 1965 Labour Government’s Immigration Controls which was published as a paperback Penguin Special
Even if we accept all the capitalist premises, then, immigration control has nothing to do with ‘flooding the labour market’ or any such nonsense. Automatically, immigration corresponds to the needs of the economy. Similarly, in close capitalist logic, immigration does not in any way aggravate the shortage of social services, since the immigrant brings with him not only his body, which has to be housed, but also his work, which helps to build the house. Immigration control is not a creature of logic, even of capitalist logic. It has nothing to do with reason, even capitalist reason. It is a direct product of and capitulation to reason’s opposite, prejudice.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/foot-paul/1965/xx/immigration.htm
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