No one is illegal. Asylum and immigration controls past and present.

Steve Cohen, Trentham Books, 268 pages, £17.99

Steve Cohen has been part of the fight against immigration controls for many years, as an activist, lawyer and writer. This collection of articles reflects that engagement: it is angry and articulate, and provides plenty of evidence against the asylum and immigration laws.

Cohen effectively debunks the claim that "we have always been a tolerant country". The myth of past tolerance has always been used to justify present intolerance. Yet in the 1930s the British state closed its doors to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. Refugees who did make it here had to depend on the support of Britain's impoverished Jewish community.

Cohen argues that labour movements must oppose "fortress Europe" and embrace the idea that "no one is illegal". His book is extremely pertinent in these days of the "war on terror", in which governments are again rushing to lock up "aliens".