The British Government looked around in 1919 and saw a growing menace in the Soviet Union, a land led by Lenin, a land of Bolsheviks intent on spreading the fire of revolution across the world. More importantly they believed that the most powerful unions in Britain had been infected by this new disease.
Prime Minister David Lloyd George called the bluff of the `Triple Alliance' of Coal, Transport and Rail. Making it clear to them that if there was a general strike the Government would collapse and the unions would have to run the country. Clearly he knew that although the rank and file union members might be militant their leaders were not.
The problem for Black people is that this meant that they could be used as a smokescreen to deflect bad times onto, and they were.