Decolonisation and the Creation of the British Immigration Control System

Abstract

Since the introduction of immigration controls in Britain in the early 20th century, racially and sexually discriminatory practices have been used by the British authorities to filter incoming migrants according to their level of desirability to the state. This chapter charts the introduction of immigration control legislation in the UK and the development of discriminatory policies that have become more restrictive since the first legislative Act was introduced in 1905. It will be argued that the purpose of controls has been to restrict entry for those considered ‘undesirable’ to the British nation-state and that these controls have imposed rigorous scrutiny upon potential migrants. At the same time, the chapter will show that, despite the aspiration of the authorities to screen and carefully select the migrant intake, the path towards development of the modern immigration control system, with its cornerstone being the Immigration Act 1971, has not been so straightforward and that the legislative process, negotiating between populist anti-immigrant sentiment and other socio-economic, legal, diplomatic and humanitarian concerns, has been haphazard. However, the end result of this has been a bipartisan consensus between the Conservatives and Labour that good race relations can only be maintained through strict immigration control.