There is an argument you sometimes hear the British trade unions have long called for the exclusion of black or migrant workers. The picture isn't entirely untrue: as far back as the early 1900s, dockers' leader Ben Tillett made a number of disgraceful anti-Semitic speeches. Meanwhile, it's only as recently as 1973 that the TUC fell into the regular habit of opposing new anti-immigration laws: for the period between 1905 and 1973, the picture is mixed and far from rosy.

But I've always been surprised that in all the many accounts of immigration law no mention is made of the attempts when working class people did agitate against racist laws, and were successful. Theodore Rothstein's From Chartism to Labourism records a successful campaign in 1850, which blocked an attempted Anti-Aliens Bill. Frederick Engels was one of the campaign's speakers (p. 156).

When anti-immigrant legislation was suggested, it was normally defeated. In 1855, the former Chartists of the North East helped to block a proposed anti-refugee Bill aimed at excluding foreign troublemakers, including the prominent Hungarian nationalist Louis Kossuth. Marx's correspondent George Julian Harney warned in the press that any such plans would be met with 'a national delegation' to bring what he called 'pressure from without' to bear on the legislature. He named London, Newcastle and Glasgow as three likely centres of the planned pro-refugee campaign.

Caroline Benn's biography of Keir Hardie describes how the 1884 TUC Congress adopted an anti-immigration stance - and was picketed as a a result by trade unionists from Russia, America and Britain (p. 132)

In 1894 when Lord Salisbury's Conservative government attempted to introduce an Aliens Bill, and was defeated by a large majority

Graham Johnson's Social Democratic Politics in Britain observes that Social Democratic Federation conferences voted to oppose anti-Aliens legislation each year from at least 1902 to 1905 (p. 113) I can't believe that would have had no effect on the policies of unions such as the gas workers' union and the dockers' union, both of which were heavily staffed by ex-SDFers.

If anyone else has details of any of these campaigns, please send them to me.