Wednesday 5 August 2009

The Herd Management Act (1965)

(Officially The Race Relations Act [1965])

In Russell Lewis, Anti-Racism: A Mania Exposed (Quartet Books, London, 1988. p.34.):

The incitement to racial hatred part of the bill was not controversial. As a matter of fact it was due less to racist propaganda against coloured people than to anti-Semitic speeches at public meetings in the early 1960s. This change in the law was strongly urged by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
The reason it was not controversial is because organised Jewry was advocating for it. If Black or Bangladeshi organisations had been demanding laws limiting free speech no-one would have listened. With Jews, no-one dared defy them.

Frank Soskice was Home Secretary at the time.

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