 Over the Suez crisis, Pannell supported the government and later opposed the policy of withdrawal from the canal zone; he was one of 14 (eight of whom had resigned the Conservative whip) to abstain on a vote endorsing the Government's policy in May 1957.Later that year he began a campaign to change the terms on which Commonwealth citizens were allowed to enter the United Kingdom, arguing that seventy percent of those convicted of living off immoral earnings in London were citizens of other Commonwealth countries or the Republic of Ireland.He came back to this issue after race riots in Nottingham in August 1958, calling also for general immigration control.