BRITAIN: Mrs. Thatcher's Bold Gamble

Immigration and racism become campaign issues

A funny thing happened to Margaret Thatcher on the way to No. 10 Downing Street: the economy and political mood of Britain underwent a sea change. Less than a year ago the Tories were running 21% ahead of Labor in the polls, and Conservative Leader Thatcher was the odds-on favorite to become her country's first woman Prime Minister. Now the two parties are in a dead heat, and Prime Minister James Callaghan is more popular than his party while Thatcher lags behind hers.

Callaghan's main accomplishment has been to turn the economy around, a feat that was aided by both the expected gush of North Sea oil and his success in holding the line on wages. According to Gallup, the electorate now believes that Labor can do a better job than the Conservatives in controlling inflation. Even such a stalwart establishment organ as the Financial Times praised Callaghan for giving Britain "almost as good a conservative government as we are likely to get."

With national elections approaching, Mrs. Thatcher undertook a highly public effort to reach out to the common folk. She turned up for a walkabout along Petticoat Lane, London's celebrated street market, where she was bussed by a local huckster. But she also needed a popular issue, and so she did what had hitherto been politically unthinkable: she injected the explosive issue of immigration, meaning race, into the campaign. In a television interview, Mrs. Thatcher called for a "clear end to immigration," on the ground that "people are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people of a different culture. And, you know, the British character has done so much for democracy, for law, and done so much throughout the world, that if there is any fear that it might be swamped, people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in."

Until that point, only the maverick former Tory Enoch Powell and the small, neo-Fascist National Front had dared to stir up the fears of those who object to the presence of 1.9 million "coloreds" in Great Britain (total pop. 54 million). Thatcher's statement touched off an uproar in Parliament. Labor members shouted "Racist!" There was some dismay in the Conservatives' shadow cabinet, whose members had not been consulted about the declaration, but other Tories applauded her stand, gleefully dubbing her "Thatcher, the Vote Snatcher." Callaghan accused her of "opportunism," while one Cabinet member despaired: "I have no doubt that race can win the election."

Even before the Tory leader spoke out, another Gallup poll showed that 59% of the British public felt that immigrants were "a very serious social problem in Britain today." To 46%, race relations were getting worse, while 49% wanted the government to offer immigrants financial help to leave the country. Unquestionably Mrs. Thatcher had seized an issue of particular appeal to traditionally Labor blue-collar workers, who see the immigrants as a threat to their jobs, and to a large segment of the British public who resent the intrusion of a different culture.