A Dirty War: the New Right and Local Authority Anti-Racism

Abstract

By the time Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street fpr her second term as Prime Minister in 1983, far-reaching reform of British local government had been firmly established on the Conservative agenda. The Party’s manifesto for the 1983 General Election promised action to deal with the ‘excessive and irresponsible rate increases’ imposed by ‘high-spending councils’ and the abolition of the ‘wasteful and unnecessary tier of government’ represented by the Metropolitan County Councils and the Greater London Council (see Stewart and Stoker, 1989). These moves had little to do with the race equality or anti-racist policies of local authorities for the simple reason that few local authorities had done anything serious in this respect. The arguments for reform of local government which had been put forward by free market think tanks such as the Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies were more that local administrations were inefficient, costly and politically motivated and were failing to provide decent services. However, as an increasing number of local authorities began to adopt race equality policies, largely as a consequence of the 1981 urban rebellions, race became an important focus for Conservative attacks on local government.