Book Review: Britain and Ireland: The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain

published in journals or monographs, the readership of which will normally run to a few hundred rather than the thousands who will read his book, or at least the boiled-down versions in the media. Second, so much of what Goodhart claims is strikingly novel, but will come as no surprise to anyone working on migration, many of whose efforts, to be fair to him, the author tries hard to draw upon. Third, those people will quickly realise that quite a lot of the incontrovertible facts that we must all apparently face before it’s too late turn out not to be incontrovertible at all. None of this, however, is necessarily a bad thing. Although the book may well irritate more than it convinces, it will not only provoke plenty of debate in a teaching situation but may even encourage more people who really know their stuff into bringing it to a wider audience. If they don’t, Goodhart will remain the media’s go-to-guy on all these issues. If that happens, we have only ourselves to blame.

informed debate in the UK than those whose work is published in journals or monographs, the readership of which will normally run to a few hundred rather than the thousands who will read his book, or at least the boiled-down versions in the media. Second, so much of what Goodhart claims is strikingly novel, but will come as no surprise to anyone working on migration, many of whose efforts, to be fair to him, the author tries hard to draw upon. Third, those people will quickly realise that quite a lot of the incontrovertible facts that we must all apparently face before it's too late turn out not to be incontrovertible at all.
None of this, however, is necessarily a bad thing. Although the book may well irritate more than it convinces, it will not only provoke plenty of debate in a teaching situation but may even encourage more people who really know their stuff into bringing it to a wider audience. If they don't, Goodhart will remain the media's go-to-guy on all these issues. If that happens, we have only ourselves to blame. A fortune teller in Orpington once predicted that a young Margaret Roberts would be 'great -as great as Churchill ' (p. 433) and in this, the first of the wholelife biographies of the late Baroness Thatcher, Robin Harris makes no secret of his personal admiration of a woman with whom he worked for over 30 years, first as a speechwriter then on her memoirs after she had left office in 1990. For this reason, this is not a conventional biography of Thatcher's life and nor does it seek to be, but it is instead a readable and at times amusing part-history part-polemic in defence of both the Iron Lady herself and all that she stood for. As a result, 'balance' plays no part in Harris' thinking (p. 2). The author recognises that this approach may not be to everyone's taste and is careful therefore not to alienate those who are not of a similar ilk (Thatcher loyalists) by ensuring that as we pass through the character-building phases of Thatcher's life -her austere upbringing in Grantham; her time as the infamous 'Milk Snatcher' Education Secretary; the Prime Minister who beat General Galtieri and Arthur Scargill but was over-thrown by her own cabinet in a 'Treasury Plot' led by John Major (p. 333); her decline into dementia due to a series of strokes, which Harris describes as a 'particularly sad' period in her life (p. 430) -he highlights her mistakes along the way. The most scathing criticism is reserved for the two men whom Harris clearly feels were the most to blame for her downfall: Geoffrey Howe, a man with 'an extremely high view of his own abilities' (p. 173), and Nigel Lawson, who Thatcher found 'lacking in moral character' due to his secretiveness at the Treasury (p. 295). It is opinions such as these which make Harris' biography such an enjoyable read. Thanks to Charles Moore's 2014 'official' biography revealing correspondence between Margaret and her sister Muriel, some of Harris' statements have proved to be inaccurate, such as that Thatcher had 'no romantic friendships' before Denis (p. 42). Otherwise, this is an excellent insight into the life of a woman who proved divisive and controversial right up until her death, and who is perhaps best summed up by Harris' own distinctive view on Thatcher and her legacy: 'She slew the dragons. Now the meek can inherit the earth' (p. 450). The key finding of the research carried out by Anthony Heath and his colleagues is that engagement in both the electoral process and other forms of political participation does not differ significantly between ethnic minorities and the white majority. Particularly for the second generation, the trend is for a convergence with the rest of society. This is not to say that there is nothing specific about ethnic minority political engagement. There is evidence to show that ethnicity does in fact trump class when looking at allegiance to the Labour Party. Indeed, minorities are, in general, less supportive of government spending but still more inclined to vote Labour. The data from the Ethnic Minority British

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Election Survey (EMBES) throws up some other interesting results. For example, minorities were less likely to abstain or defect from Labour at the 2010 general election. The authors explore these and other issues in detail and attempt to provide possible reasons for certain findings without discounting alternative explanations. The book is divided into ten chapters and looks at several key topics including: whether there is an ethnic minority agenda and how/if this is incorporated into mainstream politics; why Labour partisanship is so much more prevalent among minorities; rates of registration, turnout, abstention and defection; forms of nonelectoral participation and overall satisfaction with democracy and its institutions. In each chapter the data is presented in a manner designed not to bamboozle the non-specialist reader, who is guided through the results with the most significant findings highlighted and commented upon. Handily for those who wish to get more intimate with the data, supplementary tables are provided in the appendices of several chapters. Heath et al. should also be commended for recognising the potential flaws and limitations with their survey data. They are at pains to warn readers about the pitfalls of inferring causal processes from the statistics and readily admit to the fuzziness of some of the ethnic categories they are using.
The recent media interest in the potential of ethnic minorities to significantly influence the next UK general election in 2015 means that the timing of this book is impeccable. It should give serious pause for thought for politicians and political parties -in particular Labour, which despite successfully incorporating minorities in the past is in danger of taking their loyalty for granted. As a 'symbolic atonement for European civilisation's responsibility for the Holocaust', the state of Israel was initially supported by the British Labour and Communist Parties (p. 1). Post-1967, however, the British Left and the Zionist movement drifted apart following Israel's shift to neoliberalism and exclusive nationalism.
Drawing upon rich archival material, The British Left and Zionism explores the changing attitudes of the British Left to Israel and the Zionist movement in the second half of the twentieth century.
From the early twentieth century the British Left helped to popularise the Zionist cause inspired by the strength of the Jewish labour movement, which led them to believe that Israel would trigger economic development and promote social justice in the Middle East. Relations between the Zionist movement and the British Left was flourishing until the end of the 1960s, and culminated in Labour's support for the newly created state of Israel.
However, the rise of messianic nationalism challenged the Left's perception of Zionism as a 'long-term cure from anti-Semitism' and a means to ensuring the peaceful coexistence of Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East (p. 143). Labour's disillusionment with Zionism deepened with the decline of the Israeli Labour movement and the country's drift to the right in pursuit of neoliberal economic policies and the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. That eventually intensified Labour's contacts with a unified Palestinian movement.
Finally, the book examines whether it was a new form of anti-Semitism that changed Labour's perception of the Israel-Palestine topic in the 1980s. There is no evidence in support of that view, which is confirmed by the author. The British Left's divorce from the Zionist movement was politically rather than ideologically motivated.
Grounded in rich archival material, the book could have been better embedded in the political context. For instance, a clear distinction between Labour's attitude to Israel while in government and in opposition would have enriched the analysis. Despite Paul Kelemen's hints that Labour's disillusionment with Israel caused more damage on a grassroots -if not a government -level, the difference in their views is not necessarily clear (p. 207).
Nonetheless, the book provides a historically accurate, informed overview of how the British Left shifted from support to criticism of Zionism in opposition to Israel's 'blood and soil' nationalism and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.