Citizenship and Belonging: Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain (Migration, Minorities and Citizenship)

Citizenship and Belonging Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain

James Hampshire

Migration, Minorities and Citizenship General Editors: Zig Layton-Henry, Professor of Politics, University of Warwick; and Danièle Joly, Professor, Director, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick Titles include: Muhammad Anwar, Patrick Roach and Ranjit Sondhi (editors) FROM LEGISLATION TO INTEGRATION? Race Relations in Britain Sophie Body-Gendrot and Marco Martiniello (editors) MINORITIES IN EUROPEAN CITIES The Dynamics of Social Integration and Social Exclusion at the Neighbourhood Level Naomi Carmon (editor) IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION IN POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES Theoretical Analysis and Policy-Related Research Malcolm Cross and Robert Moore (editors) GLOBALIZATION AND THE NEW CITY Migrants, Minorities and Urban Transformations in Comparative Perspective Adrian Favell PHILOSOPHIES OF INTEGRATION Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain Agata Górny and Paolo Ruspini (editors) MIGRATION IN THE NEW EUROPE East-West Revisited James Hampshire CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain Simon Holdaway and Anne-Marie Barron RESIGNERS? THE EXPERIENCE OF BLACK AND ASIAN POLICE OFFICERS Danièle Joly (editor) GLOBAL CHANGES IN ASYLUM REGIMES Closing Doors HAVEN OR HELL? Asylum Policies and Refugees in Europe SCAPEGOATS AND SOCIAL ACTORS The Exclusion and Integration of Minorities in Western and Eastern Europe Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska TOWARD ASSIMILATION AND CITIZENSHIP Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States

Atsushi Kondo (editor) CITIZENSHIP IN A GLOBAL WORLD Comparing Citizenship Rights for Aliens Zig Layton-Henry and Czarina Wilpert (editors) CHALLENGING RACISM IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY Jørgen S. Nielsen TOWARDS A EUROPEAN ISLAM Jan Rath (editor) IMMIGRANT BUSINESSES The Economic, Political and Social Environment Peter Ratcliffe (editor) THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Social Change John Rex ETHNIC MINORITIES IN THE MODERN NATION STATE Working Papers in the Theory of Multiculturalism and Political Integration Carl-Ulrik Schierup (editor) SCRAMBLE FOR THE BALKANS Nationalism, Globalism and the Political Economy of Reconstruction Steven Vertovec and Ceri Peach (editors) ISLAM IN EUROPE The Politics of Religion and Community Östen Wahlbeck KURDISH DIASPORAS A Comparative Study of Kurdish Refugee Communities John Wrench, Andrea Rea and Nouria Ouali (editors) MIGRANTS, ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE LABOUR MARKET Integration and Exclusion in Europe

Migration, Minorities and Citizenship Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71047–9 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Citizenship and Belonging Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain James Hampshire Lecturer in Politics University of Sussex

© James Hampshire 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–1818–5 ISBN-10: 1–4039–1818–X This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hampshire, James. Citizenship and belonging : immigration and the politics of demographic governance in post-war Britain / James Hampshire. p. cm. – (Migration, minorities and citizenship) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–1818–X (cloth) 1. Great Britain–Emigration and immigration–Government policy. 2. Citizenship–Great Britain. 3. Racism–Great Britain. 4. Great Britain– Politics and government–1945– I. Title. II. Series. JV7633.H34 2005 325.41–dc22

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To Wanda

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Contents List of Tables

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

1 The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance

1

2 Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy

16

3 The Racial Demography of Immigration Controls

45

4 ‘Coloured Dick Whittingtons in this Land of Socialized Gold’: Immigration and the Welfare State

79

5 ‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation

111

6 Public Health and Immigration Policy

150

7 The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change

179

Notes

199

Bibliography

237

Index

247

vii

List of Tables 3.1 3.2

4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2

6.1

Net intake of New Commonwealth citizens, 1955–62 Commonwealth citizens from Commonwealth countries and dependent territories, excluding Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 1963–5 Number of unemployed ‘coloured’ workers according to Ministry of Labour special counts, 1953–60 Estimated percentage of non-white population registered unemployed, 1953–61 Cost of health and welfare services in England and Wales, 1961–2 Males per 1,000 females in England and Wales, 1961 and 1966 Persons convicted in the Metropolitan Police District of living on immoral earnings of women, classified by country of origin, 1951–9 Commonwealth citizens medically examined, refused entry, and reported, 1962–8

viii

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71 101 101 109 118

130 176

Acknowledgements My primary intellectual debt is to Desmond King. Desmond was the source of advice and inspiration, and throughout the long haul of research his critical comments and enthusiasm for the project helped me in more ways than I can recount here. Recently, Desmond has provided tremendous encouragement and guidance as I make my first steps in an academic career. One couldn’t hope for a sharper critic or wiser counsel. I should also like to thank Randall Hansen and Zig Layton-Henry. Randall’s critical feedback has greatly improved the manuscript, while his support as a mentor has been exemplary. Zig made some very helpful comments on the manuscript and pointed me in the direction of the present series for publication. Of the many other scholars who have shaped my thinking, I should like to single out just two more. Lois McNay helped at an early stage, and although my research evolved in a direction that led me away from my original concerns, her advice has been most useful. I’d also like to thank Jane Lewis, for whom I worked as a Research Officer between finishing my D.Phil. and commencing work on this book. I learnt an enormous amount from Jane, and I can only hope that some of it has filtered through into these pages. If sound intellectual advice is essential to the fledgling academic, food and shelter are more fundamental still. I should therefore like to thank the Economic and Social Research Council, which funded the research on which this book is based (Award Number R00429834446), and then allowed me the time to rewrite the manuscript through the award of a Postdoctoral Fellowship (Award Reference PTA-026-270291). Throughout, I was fortunate to be a member of the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, which provided a commodious and stimulating environment in which to pursue my research. I’d also like to thank my editor at Palgrave, Briar Towers, who graciously accepted the gradual rolling back of deadlines. Writing a book like this is an essentially lonely business, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of my family and friends. My mother, Christine, went well beyond the call of maternal duty, reading the whole manuscript to give me some very helpful comments from a non-specialist perspective. Most of all though, I’d like to ix

x Acknowledgements

thank her for her care and support. My father, Alex, and his partner Jan, were also extremely supportive and generous with their hospitality at their home in France, which allowed for much-needed temporary migrations from England. Three of my closest friends, Stuart Allen, Mark Beech and Christian Greiffenhagen all contributed towards my general well-being, not least through countless pub conversations. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my partner, Jennifer Moate, who buoyed me when my spirits were low, and brought me back down to earth when they threatened to float into the ether. Jen also read the entire manuscript and gave incisive editorial and substantive comments. Her loving companionship has made the last ten years the best so far. This book is dedicated to Wanda, mia nonna, who came to Britain as an immigrant in the 1940s and without whom, to state the rather obvious, neither I nor the book you’re holding in your hands would have seen the light of day.

1 The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance

1

Introduction

It has become something of a cliché to claim that globalization, especially the growth of transnational corporations and supranational political institutions, has resulted in a diminution of state power.1 Whilst it is indisputable that capital, goods and ideas flow more freely and rapidly across national boundaries, and that in many respects state control of these flows has weakened, there is at least one dimension of globalization that has led not so much to a retrenchment as a reassertion of state power: the movement of people. During the second half of the twentieth century, wealthy countries faced an increase in large-scale immigration as people fleeing war, persecution and poverty, or simply seeking a better life, made their way to the developed world. Apart from those immigrants who were recruited to fill labour shortages in expanding economies, most of this immigration was unwelcome in the receiving countries, and the typical response has been for states to reassert their powers of exclusion.2 Even when immigration was encouraged through guest-worker systems, this only reinforced the fact that the state has the power (at least formally) to decide who can and who cannot enter its sovereign territory. In a globalizing world, immigration controls would therefore seem to be ‘one of the last holdouts of sovereignty’.3 The political ramifications of this age of migration have been enormous, and immigration has become one of the most salient political issues of our time.4 In Britain, the controversy surrounding immigration has not thus far occasioned the success of xenophobic or far right political parties, as it has in other European countries including Austria, Denmark, France, Italy and The Netherlands.5 This is certainly not for want of concern among the British electorate – in May 2004 a 1

2 Citizenship and Belonging

YouGov poll published in the Daily Telegraph found that immigration was ranked by 56 per cent of respondents as one of the most important issues facing the country6 – but largely for other, more contingent reasons (not least an electoral system that mitigates against the success of extremist and single-issue parties). Several factors lie behind immigration’s renewed salience in British politics. Firstly, the number of immigrants has increased. After primary colonial immigration was effectively halted in the late 1960s and early 1970s (although family reunion continued), and during the economic downturn following the oil crisis of 1973, there was a reduction in immigration. Throughout the 1970s, Britain recorded a net migration outflow. Then, in the second half of the 1980s, immigration began to increase and a net inflow was recorded in 1986; another, bigger leap occurred in the late 1990s.7 A significant proportion of this most recent increase is made up of refugees, which has given rise to a contentious politics of asylum.8 Secondly, the regime of restrictive controls that was developed in the 1960s and 1970s has become increasingly inadequate in the face of new forms of migration. As Bill Jordan and Franck Düvell point out: ‘new forms of global economic nomadism have outstripped the capacities of national migration management systems to adapt to the requirements of international capitalism’.9 Thus the attempted reassertion of state power has not actually been very successful in preventing immigrants from getting in. Thirdly, the growth of human trafficking has made it increasingly difficult to police borders, exacerbating the failure to develop a coherent system for managed migration. Organized networks of traffickers are able to exploit the inevitable weaknesses and loopholes in controls, and illegal immigration has increased (although, by definition, reliable data is hard to come by). Finally, immigration has been driven by demand side factors. Britain, in line with much of Europe, has a sub-replacement level birth-rate, which has resulted in a decline in the native-born working-age population. In the context of this demographic deficit, immigration is seen by many employers as a much needed input of labour, and by some policy-makers as a partial remedy to worsening old-age support ratios.10 While the debate about immigration as a possible solution to the demographic deficit has taken wing, we lack a contextualized understanding of how immigration politics and policy have been shaped by demographic factors. This book aims to go some way towards redressing this lack, by exploring post-war immigration policy and the political debates that surrounded policy-making as facets of ‘demographic governance’. I use this term as a shorthand for the way in which

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 3

modern states regulate and manage their populations using a variety of governmental techniques. These techniques include tools and methods to monitor, gather information and create knowledge about population trends (e.g. fertility, longevity, mortality) as well as interventionist policies designed to effect changes in the size or composition of a population. Crucially, demographic governance encompasses not only the regulation of quantitative trends, but also qualitative interventions in the lives of a populace intended to influence their health, productivity, and welfare. Of course, almost no population, certainly not those of liberal democratic states, is hermetically sealed. Accordingly, in the age of migration any state that wishes to exercise even a modicum of control over its population must attend to inflows and outflows of people as well as to those who are settled. The repertoire of policies that states have at their disposal to manage their populations therefore includes citizenship and immigration legislation. On the one hand, every modern state seeks to define who is (and implicitly who is not) a member of the territory over which it exercises sovereignty, and every such state regulates the entry of both members and non-members with some form of border control. On the other hand, and no less significant for understanding demographic governance, many states have at some point actively encouraged either immigration or emigration for a variety of economic, demographic, social or political reasons. To give just two examples, guest-worker programmes have been used to encourage immigration, while sponsored passage schemes have been used to encourage emigration. The demographic governance of immigration also has strong qualitative dimensions. Immigration controls are often designed to include or exclude certain ethnic or racial groups, ensure immigrants have desirable skills, shape the age or gender composition of immigrant cohorts, and protect the health of the native population. Finally, the management of immigration also stretches beyond border controls to include regulation of access to membership benefits, such as welfare provisions, and to definitions of ‘legitimate receivers’ of those benefits.11 As well as yielding insights into these phenomena an analysis of immigration in terms of demographic governance also sheds new light on some familiar questions. In particular, it allows us to consider an issue that has been much debated in the academic literature: namely, the extent to which immigration policy in post-war Britain was motivated by racism. Careful attention to the way in which immigration policies were used as tools in demographic governance reveals the

4 Citizenship and Belonging

often insidious influence of racial ideas on policy-making. As I shall argue, the policy debates surrounding immigration and demography were thoroughly racialized and the over-arching aim of immigration controls was to prevent the development of a multiracial society.

2

Demographic governance and the modern state

I should begin by stating an underlying premise of this book: demographic governance is integral to the modern state. As the historian of ideas, Michel Foucault, argued, the management and regulation of population is central to the political rationality of the modern state as it developed from the eighteenth century onwards. Foucault described this form of governance, which he termed variously as ‘biopolitics’ or ‘biopower’, as follows: the endeavour, begun in the eighteenth century, to rationalize the problems presented to governmental practice by the phenomena characteristic of a group of living human beings constituted as a population: health, sanitation, birthrate, longevity, race.12 In this modern form of political rationality the ancient right to take life and let live [faire mourir et laisser vivre] is replaced by a power to foster life and disallow it to the point of death [faire vivre et laisser mourir].13 During the eighteenth and increasingly into the nineteenth century, the state began to exercise its power not so much through repression and direct coercion, which Foucault calls sovereign power, as through disciplinary and regulatory mechanisms, a ‘power over life’.14 This power is directed towards maximizing the forces of the population, and consists of interventions in the everyday lives of individuals and groups, in order that the social body is made secure, healthy, and productive. It focuses on ‘the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these to vary’.15 The development of demographic governance was driven by a dramatic expansion in the size of Europe’s population. Historical demographers have shown that around 1750 in western Europe, sustained population growth supplanted the fluctuating cycles of growth and regression that characterized previous epochs. The total population of Europe grew from about 118 million in 1700, to 187 million by 1801, and 321 million by 1900.16 This created new opportunities as well as new

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 5

problems of governance. On the one hand, population increases facilitated economic growth, which in turn drove the expansion of European nations overseas and their subjugation of indigenous peoples across the globe. At the same time, ever larger populations posed new problems which required the development of sophisticated governmental techniques. In urban conurbations, large and dense populations sustained endemic diseases such as smallpox and measles, prompting the search for new medical knowledge and cures. Population growth also required enlarged and better food distribution systems, with knock-on effects on transportation, communications, and bureaucratic organization. In 1801, the first decennial census in Britain marked a watershed in the development of demographic governance. By this time, it was recognized by politicians and bureaucrats that the British state required better knowledge of the population if it was to extend its administrative power into the minutiae of daily life (indeed, any state that aims to regulate the life of its population requires close and detailed surveillance).17 British attempts at population enumeration had first begun in the colonies, which itself suggests the use of such data in stratagems of social control. In India, for example, the Colonial Government evolved one of the great statistical bureaucracies, while census taking in North American colonies stretched back to the seventeenth century.18 In the imperial metropole, the first proposal for a national census in 1753 had been deeply controversial. Proponents argued that it would help with numerous aspects of governance, including ‘evidence as to the desirability of emigration to the colonies’, but the threat to ‘English liberty’ was perceived to be real and the Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords.19 After the successful introduction of the census some fifty years later, progress in statistical techniques allowed for more sophisticated data to be gathered. Demography rapidly acquired a new importance, perhaps best captured by the debate surrounding Malthus’ predictions in his 1803 Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he argued that while population increases in a ‘geometrical ratio’, the means of subsistence increases only in an ‘arithmetical ratio’, thus population has a ‘constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence’.20 It is often forgotten that Malthus, the founder of modern demography, was also a social reformer who recommended universal education, medical care for the poor and state assistance to emigrants as part of his remedy for checking overpopulation.21 In the second half of the century, neoMalthusians vied with those who were more troubled by the threat of fertility decline and depopulation, brought about, so they argued, by

6 Citizenship and Belonging

new contraceptive knowledge and techniques as well as the availability of abortion.22 Just as demographic methods were developing in the nineteenth century, so too were actual interventions by the state. Reformers such as Edwin Chadwick and Charles Booth campaigned for government to provide poor relief and ensure sanitation and public health. Chadwick, in particular, argued for a shift towards what the historian John Roach describes as ‘a tutelary state with strong central agencies, communicating with well organised local bodies through an inspectorate and official memoranda’.23 A range of legislation – Poor Laws, Factory Acts, Sanitary Acts, and Public Health Acts – expanded the state’s administrative and bureaucratic capacities and its ability to micro-manage the population.24 As Dorothy Porter observes, despite the ‘rhetoric of liberal individualism, the promotion of the economic ideology of laissez faire and the reliance upon voluntary effort to provide social services to those in need, the Victorian state in Britain nevertheless continued to expand and become increasingly interventionist’.25 Foucault’s analyses of disciplinary power remind us that the resulting institutions of ‘improvement’ – schools, prisons, workhouses and psychiatric institutions – and the discursive apparatuses that surrounded these institutions were as much about social control as social conscience.26 Thus by the end of the nineteenth century the British state routinely gathered a mass of demographic data and intervened in population management in ways which would have been unthinkable the century before. As S. E. Finer points out in his History of Government, the penetration of government, its ability ‘to act directly upon the population by its own agents’, had been transformed, including ‘surveillance of the population, and the control and direction of that population’s activities’. While the first implied the acquisition of information, the other two implied government action; on all three counts the state’s capabilities had burgeoned under industrialization.27 During the twentieth century, demographic governance developed in both scope and intensity. Across a range of states – liberal democracies no less than totalitarian dictatorships – governments sought to manage their populations to an unprecedented extent. In her study of population politics in the twentieth century, historian Maria Sophia Quine observes that governments: sought to effect dramatic socio-biological change in populations through a variety of conspicuously coercive and apparently pro-

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 7

gressive reforms. Demographic anxiety in both dictatorships and democracies provided the emotional and ideological stimulus for the population policies which were central to the modern welfare state.28 In the first half of the century eugenic ideas stimulated a widespread interest in socio-biological engineering through state intervention. Eugenicists argued that states should aim to ‘perfect’ or eliminate parts of their populations through selective breeding. George Bernard Shaw’s call for a ‘eugenics religion’ to ‘save our civilization’29 resonated across the political spectrum, and was received with especial enthusiasm by social progressives.30 In the 1920s, eugenics made its strongest mark in the United States. In some 27 states those deemed ‘unfit’ were forcibly sterilized, while across the nation the ‘feeble minded’ were committed to institutions, and mixed race couples were prohibited from marrying.31 In the 1927 decision, Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court upheld a Virginia state law permitting sterilization of a ‘feeble minded’ and ‘moral delinquent’ woman, Carrie Buck. In the majority opinion, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that ‘instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. … Three generations of imbeciles are enough.’32 Nazi Germany imported these practices and extended them to horrific extremes through its racialized population policy. The Nazi vision of a new racial order began with the compulsory sterilization of asylum inmates and the killing of ‘malformed’ children under the guise of a euthanasia programme, and culminated in the extermination of six million Jews and thousands of Gypsies and homosexuals in the death camps of Auschwitz.33 The understandable tendency to view Nazism as a case apart has resulted in an obfuscation of the true breadth of interest in eugenic ideas in liberal democracies. As the historian of Nazi Germany, Michael Burleigh, points out, notwithstanding the intensity of its obsession with race, ‘Nazism drew on pathologies and trends also common in free societies, such as Great Britain or the United States of America’.34 Interest in eugenics peaked in Britain during the inter-war period, as declining and differential fertility rates across socio-economic classes gave rise to middle and upper-class concern about racial degeneration or ‘race suicide’.35 Although Britain was more cautious than the United States in its conversion to the eugenics faith,36 in 1934 a government-appointed committee nevertheless recommended the

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voluntary sterilization of over a quarter of a million ‘mental defectives’.37 In the event, the government refused to legislate, largely because of opposition from the Minster of Health and a constellation of interests, including the labour movement, the Catholic Church, and the British Medical Association. The 1934 Brock Committee turned out to be the high tidemark for eugenics in Britain. After the Second World War, revelations about the Nazi sterilization programme and its genocidal population policy thoroughly discredited eugenic ideas. Having enjoyed half a century of enthusiastic support, eugenics was rapidly pushed to the margins of political debate. In post-war Britain, or in the rest of western Europe, the welfare state emerged as the archetypal form of demographic governance, the institutional form through which population management was conducted. Unlike the eugenic variant of demographic governance, welfare provision generally did not interdict formal freedoms and was therefore consistent with the form of liberal democratic government that triumphed after the defeat of Nazism.38 Policies and other interventions to secure the health, longevity and well-being of a population were viewed as benign and just, and were accorded a high degree of legitimacy. While the types of welfare regime varied,39 in the twentieth century all western European governments developed some form of provision to protect their populations from want, squalor and disease. Having sketched the history of demographic governance from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, I shall conclude this section with a brief consideration of how migration policies became central to European states’ regulation and management of their populations. In the twentieth century, the increased movement of people across national borders meant that the regulation of population required some degree of control over inflows and outflows. Migration policy therefore took on a new importance. Prior to the twentieth century, European countries had largely exported their populations – to North America and colonial territories across Africa, Asia and Australasia; immigration flows were small and relatively uncontroversial.40 With a net outflow of population, Britain was no exception, and emigration policy preoccupied policy-makers. From the early nineteenth well into the first half of the twentieth century, governments encouraged emigration to the colonies through policies such as the Free Passage Scheme of 1919 and the 1922 Empire Settlement Act. Immigration developed into a political issue in the early decades of the twentieth century as eastern European immigrants, mostly Jews fleeing pogroms and other forms of persecution, arrived in Britain.

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 9

Prior to this, aliens had enjoyed unrestricted entry into the country and during the nineteenth century significant numbers of Irish, Italians and Germans had migrated to Britain. Notwithstanding bouts of nationalist and racist sentiment, these immigrants were not thought to be sufficiently ‘problematic’ to warrant legislation.41 It was only with the arrival of eastern European Jews that anti-immigrant attitudes, strongly influenced by anti-Semitism, congealed to produce restrictive legislation in the form of the Aliens Act of 1905 and the Aliens Restriction Act of 1914.42 Only after 1945, however, did immigration from beyond Europe become significant enough to register as a major political issue. Across Europe, immigration took two distinct forms in the post-war period. Imperial powers such as Britain and France experienced inflows of colonial immigrants, while other European countries, notably Germany, encouraged migrants through labour recruitment schemes.43 In both cases, immigration policies took on a new importance. Our focus is on the former type of immigration in the British context, which was met with consistent attempts at limitation and control. Immigration policies can usefully be divided into soliciting and stemming strategies: as Christian Joppke puts it, ‘soliciting is about the creation of [immigrant] flows; stemming presupposes existing flows, and seeks to contain them’.44 New settler states, such as those in North America, both solicit and stem immigrants, while most European nationstates have historically adopted more exclusive stemming strategies.45 States seek to solicit immigrants for a number of reasons: to meet labour and skills shortages in an economy, to rejuvenate ageing populations, or to maintain or bolster the ethnic composition of a population.46 Conversely, attempts to stem immigration typically have three broad objectives: first, the regulation of sheer numbers; second, control of the national, racial or ethnic origin of immigrants; and third, the control of other social and demographic characteristics of immigrant cohorts, such as skills, age, and gender. The British Government’s approach to colonial immigration in the post-war period was emphatically of the stemming variety and, as we shall see, immigration controls were shaped by quantitative, racial and other socio-demographic factors.

3

Immigration, race and belonging in post-war Britain

During the three decades after the Second World War, Britain underwent perhaps the single most important change in the composition of

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its population since the demographic revolution of the eighteenth century. Starting in the late 1940s, black and Asian immigration from the colonies and ‘New Commonwealth’47 transformed Britain into a multiracial society. In 1948 there were just a few thousand non-white people living in the country, mostly concentrated in sea ports, but by 1968 there were over a million.48 Today’s ethnic minority communities, which make up around 8 per cent of the total population,49 are largely the descendants of these immigrants. An often overlooked fact about this migration is that it was a movement of citizens within an imperial polity, rather than a movement of aliens to a sovereign territory. Indeed, up until the first attempt at post-war restriction (in 1962), persons born in colonial or Commonwealth countries enjoyed a formal right of unrestricted entry to the United Kingdom by virtue of their legal status as Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs). As growing numbers of black and Asian CUKCs arrived on British shores, successive governments sought to restrict these immigrants, so that by the early 1970s, although the category of CUKC remained in place, the right of entry for colonial citizens had been abrogated. Why did governments, both Conservative and Labour, pursue a relentlessly restrictionist line on colonial immigration? The simple answer is that across British society, black and Asian immigration was viewed in predominantly negative terms. Immigration was perceived as a ‘problem’ to be ‘controlled’, while immigrants themselves were often associated with social disorder and malady. In the language of economics, immigration brought costs without benefits. The diction of this widespread problematization varied, from tabloid newspapers railing against the ‘invasion’ of ‘coloured men’ to the more measured assessments of civil service memoranda, but the overall attitude was remarkably consistent: colonial immigration was undesirable, unwanted and would sooner or later have to be controlled (indeed, given these views, in the next chapter I shall consider why restrictive legislation was not passed earlier than it was). These negative attitudes drowned out the relatively few voices in support of immigration, and its benefits were rarely articulated. In public, very few politicians were prepared to present the positive case for immigration, even though it was known within government that there was an economic need for labour. It was this widespread problematization that underpinned the creation of immigration controls. My intention is to examine immigration policy-making as a dimension of demographic governance. This entails a consideration

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 11

of how attitudes towards immigration and its impact on the population structured political debate, as well as analysis of how policy design was influenced by the demography of immigrant cohorts. My central claim is that the immigration debate in post-war Britain was thoroughly racialized, and that immigration controls had a racial demographic purpose: they were intended to prevent, or at least limit, Britain developing into a multiracial society. Furthermore, various other provisions – including labour-vouchers, dependants policy, and public health measures – were designed to shape the composition of immigrant groups. Here too we shall see that racial stereotypes and prejudices structured perceptions and assessments. Determined to prevent Britain from becoming a multiracial society, but also concerned to avoid charges of racism – which could have had damaging domestic and international ramifications – successive governments faced a dilemma: how could Britain’s racial demography be kept in check without introducing explicit racial distinctions into the law? This problem was especially acute because of the imperial citizenship schema that had been created in 1948. As mentioned above, colonial immigrants were Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs), and their migration was therefore a legitimate exercise of their right to enter and settle in the United Kingdom. Any serious attempt to control colonial immigration would disrupt the imperial schema and the rhetoric which accompanied it. In the 1950s, the Conservative Governments tried to avoid facing up to this problem via a strategy of covert administrative controls on immigration: pressurizing colonial governments to limit the issue of passports; tightening proof of identity requirements; even issuing propaganda about the harsh conditions in Britain.50 As it became clear that administrative obstacles were insufficient to the task, and as public opinion hardened behind immigration controls, legislation was eventually forthcoming. Policy-makers had two broad options: either overhaul CUKC, creating separate ‘British’ and ‘colonial’ citizenships with different rights and entitlements, or maintain the category of CUKC and distinguish statuses within it. As we shall see in Chapter 2, there were significant obstacles to the former strategy, above all a fear that abolishing CUKC would undermine the attempt to foster Commonwealth unity as a replacement for formal empire.51 Thus politicians turned to the second option. This left the question of how to distinguish between different CUKCs and how to justify that distinction without making race an explicit factor.

12 Citizenship and Belonging

It was at this stage that a distinction between citizenship and ‘belonging’ was made, with UK-born or descended persons defined as ‘citizens who belong’ and colonial-born persons as ‘citizens who do not belong’. This underpinned the Conservative Government’s legislation in 1962, and was then explicitly stated by James Callaghan when the Wilson Government extended controls to prevent the entry of ‘colonial belongers’ in 1968. ‘Belonging’ was defined in terms of descent: a person had to have been born or have a parent who was born in the United Kingdom. This mechanism was designed to minimize the number of non-white, ‘New Commonwealth’ CUKCs who could enter Britain and maximize the number of white, ‘Old Commonwealth’ CUKCs who could do so. Although the citizenship/belonging distinction was developed by the political elite, it had some basis in popular attitudes. The idea of belonging-by-descent, which had ineluctably racial implications, reflected a popular conception of racialized Britishness in which membership of the national community was more about ethnicity than affiliation to a set of civic ideals or values.52 Conversely, citizenship has a notoriously weak presence in British history53, and CUKC was largely an empty shell – a politico-legal category, rather than a civic identity. Notwithstanding T. H. Marshall’s arguments in the late 1940s, citizenship did not equate to community membership in post-war Britain. A civic ideal of citizenship, binding together a diversity of peoples through common affiliation to a set of norms, values and practices, was largely absent. Therefore, insofar as ‘belonging’ reflected a widely held and popular conception of exclusive British identity – Britishness as an ethnic, not civic idea – the abrogation of colonial citizens’ right of entry to the United Kingdom on the grounds that they did not ‘belong’ can be said to have had a demotic grounding. Regardless of whether the use of this exclusive idea of belonging had a popular legitimacy, it certainly helped to reinforce perceptions of colonial immigrants as ‘other’, outsiders who presented a threat to the British body politic.

4

Outline of the book

Each of the core chapters of this book (Chapters 3–6) addresses a particular aspect of immigration and demographic governance. Taken together these chapters provide a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which immigration was perceived to impact on the British population and how this influenced immigration policy. They are preceded

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 13

by a chapter which outlines the political and institutional context of post-war immigration, and elaborates on the crucial distinction between citizenship and ‘belonging’. Chapter 2 argues that there have been three distinct phases in the political history of immigration to post-war Britain: first, a period of imperial citizenship; second, a period of exclusion; and third, a period of renegotiation. The period of imperial citizenship began with the 1948 British Nationality Act, which established a single Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) for all British subjects whether born in the United Kingdom, colonies or Commonwealth. As colonial immigration developed in the 1950s, successive governments sought to restrict the entry of immigrants by administrative means. This strategy was supplanted in 1962 with the passage of the first Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which restricted the right of entry of colonial CUKCs, and began a period of exclusion. Over the course of the next two decades a series of immigration acts further restricted the right of colonial CUKCs to enter the country. Throughout, the proffered justification was a distinction, most succinctly captured by James Callaghan in 1968, between ‘belonging’ and ‘non-belonging’ citizens. To enjoy an unrestricted right of entry to Britain, a person had not only to be a citizen, but a ‘citizen who belongs’. ‘Belonging’ was defined in terms of lineage – a person who had been born or was the descendant of someone who was born in the United Kingdom – which served the purpose of halting primary immigration from the colonies and New Commonwealth. This period was brought to an end by the 1981 British Nationality Act which overhauled the 1948 citizenship schema and created a separate British citizenship for those born or descended from someone born in the United Kingdom. Since the early 1980s, and accelerating in the 1990s, a period of renegotiation has been underway, in which the ideas of citizenship and belonging have been scrutinized and reevaluated to take account of the evolving, multiracial and multicultural character of British society. The claim that immigration policy was racially motivated is fleshed out in Chapter 3. This chapter explores the racial demographic logic of immigration controls in the wider context of concerns about population change. It argues that quantitative and qualitative assessments of immigration by policy-makers were inseparable: the ‘numbers game’ always involved judgements – sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit – of the ‘character’ of immigrants. The idea that there was a limit to the number of immigrants that Britain could ‘assimilate’ was founded upon a belief that too many immigrants would threaten the character

14 Citizenship and Belonging

of British society. The most salient fact about colonial immigrants in this regard was that they were non-white: immigration legislation was concerned primarily with limiting the growth of non-white immigrant groups within the population. If overt or conscious racism was relatively uncommon in government debates, immigration policy was nevertheless shaped by racial demographic assumptions which linked changes in the composition of the British population with a threat to Britishness and the British ‘way of life’. Allegations of welfare scrounging, and their influence on policy, are the subject of Chapter 4. During the 1950s colonial immigrants were widely alleged to be a burden on the welfare state, especially social security benefits. This chapter begins with a theoretical discussion of how notions of ‘belonging’ underpin welfare systems, and argues that in the case of Britain the perception of colonial CUKCs as ‘nonbelonging’ provoked allegations that they were parasites rather than legitimate recipients of welfare provisions. A discourse of welfare parasitism represented immigrants as opportunists attracted to Britain by generous social security and other welfare provisions; and claimed that once settled in Britain, immigrants proved to be indolent and workshy, and a burden on public services. Immigrants were commonly portrayed as malingerers who drained the public purse, swelled the ranks of the unemployed, and generally undermined the vitality of the British labour force. These charges were unsupported empirically and were in fact insupportable. When they were considered by the Conservative Government during the mid-1950s, they were refuted. On the Government’s own terms, the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act was justified not on ‘economic’ but on ‘social’ grounds. In the aftermath of this, welfare parasitism ceased to play a major role in government debates, but it certainly did not die out in popular imagery, especially in the tabloid press where allegations of ‘benefit tourism’ continue to this day. Chapter 5 addresses an overlooked dimension of immigration politics: the imbalanced gender ratio of colonial immigration and fears that these ‘men without women’ posed a sexual threat to British society. The chapter shows that antipathy towards interracial sexual relations was widespread and deep-seated, and explores the moral panic about miscegenation that developed in the 1950s. Negative stereotypes of black male sexuality underlay fears that colonial immigrants could undermine the British ‘stock’ through interbreeding with the host population. The British Government evinced a desire to redress the gender imbalance, not least because of the social tensions

The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 15

surrounding interracial sexual relations, which sometimes erupted into violence. After 1962 the government acted to allow the dependants of primary immigrants unrestricted access, which had the intended effect of increasing the size of the female cohort in the immigrant population. In Chapter 6 the public health implications of immigration are explored. The overall impact of immigration on public health was a prominent concern in policy-making circles, which gave rise to a debate about the need for medical examination of immigrants and whether such examinations should be made a compulsory condition of entry. The chapter argues that the health of colonial immigrants was a reasonable concern because some groups, particularly from South Asia, were more likely than indigenous Britons to suffer from certain infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis. On this issue the government did not act upon calls for more restrictive measures, notably compulsory medical examinations, which is striking considering that compulsory checks were demanded by the British Medical Association – the most influential pressure group in medical politics. Although medical controls were gradually extended, the process was far from smooth. In the final chapter, the focus shifts from the period of colonial immigration to the present day. The recent politics of immigration is considered and the implications of the demographic deficit for future policy directions are explored. Each of the major concerns of the preceding chapters are revisited in order to assess their contemporary significance.

2 Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy

1

Introduction

In this chapter I argue that the imperial citizenship regime constructed in the immediate post-war years constrained the British Government’s ability to control colonial immigration, such that an unwieldy distinction between ‘belonging’ and ‘non-belonging’ citizens had to be developed in order to justify restrictive legislation. During the 1950s and 1960s, as non-white colonial immigrants arrived in Britain, hostility and fear drove the Government to restrict their entry. Although these immigrants enjoyed the same citizenship status as indigenous Britons – and their arrival on British shores was therefore a legitimate exercise of their citizenship rights – it was claimed that they did not belong in Britain. The British Government initially tried to frustrate immigration through a range of administrative means, in an attempt to limit immigration without having to make invidious distinctions between citizens. Eventually, however, it resolved that formal controls were required and legislated to differentiate the rights of United Kingdom citizenship according to ‘belonging’. The tension between citizenship and belonging continued to shape immigration policy until British citizenship was finally redefined in narrow, post-imperial terms.1 Thus the erosion and then abolition of the right of entry of colonial immigrants was founded on a distinction between ‘belonging’ and ‘non-belonging’ citizens forged by the British Government.2 I contend that the idea of belonging was a legitimating device, invoked to allow the government to pass legislation which was, in intention and effect, designed to restrict the entry of ‘coloured’ immigrants whilst avoiding the introduction of explicit racial distinctions into the law. 16

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 17

Belonging, as the idea came to be used from the 1960s onwards, was about lineage and descent: to belong a person had to have been born, or be the descendant of someone who was born, in the United Kingdom. The elaboration of this distinction was necessary because, as mentioned above, colonial immigrants had an identical citizenship status in law to indigenous Britons. The equality of formal citizenship rights had been established with the creation of a single Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) by the Labour Government in 1948. CUKC was not an exclusive conception of national citizenship rooted in a shared identity, but rather an ‘open’ multinational citizenship encompassing a range of peoples throughout the Empire and Commonwealth. 3 Non-white colonial CUKCs who migrated to Britain were construed as non-belongers – in James Callaghan’s phrase, ‘citizens who do not belong’ – to allow immigration controls to be justified in more palatable terms than race or ‘colour’ (to use the lexicon of the time). This interaction of citizenship, belonging and race in the politics of immigration has previously been noted by other scholars. In her recent study of British citizenship, Rieko Karatani observes a fundamental continuity in Britain’s immigration and citizenship policies in the twentieth century: on the one hand, an inclusive citizenship policy intended to promote the unity of the ‘global institution’ of the British Empire and Commonwealth; on the other, an exclusive immigration policy for determining ‘who “belonged” to each constituent unit of the global institution’.4 Similarly, Kathleen Paul has argued that in the post-war years UK citizenship rights, including the right to enter the country, were based on an imperial citizenship which was out of sync with a constructed national identity, ‘the notion of who was really British’.5 In his comparative study of Great Britain, Germany and the United States, Christian Joppke draws out the racial implications of this: immigration policy is usually premised on a meaningful concept of citizenship, which divides the world into those who belong and those who do not, and in which legal status overlaps with identity. In the absence of a meaningful concept of citizenship, British immigration policy had to operate on a proxy. This proxy has been race. … The two key objectives of British immigration policy … both … converge[d] on race: keep out the coloured subjects of empire, toward whom there were no ties of belonging; embrace the descendants of British settlers [of the Old Commonwealth], who mostly

18 Citizenship and Belonging

happened to be white. … Forced to define who belongs, British immigration policy resorted to birth and ancestry, thus introducing an ethnic marker that had so far been absent from the definition of Britishness.6 Joppke says that it is difficult to determine if the ‘racial preference implicit in this dual objective is one of intention or effect only’.7 In this and the next chapter, I argue that although explicit and conscious racist intent was comparatively rare among policy-makers, British immigration policy was nevertheless intended to restrict the entry of non-white colonial immigrants. While this was justified in terms of these immigrants’ supposed ‘non-belonging’, British politicians’ description of them as ‘non-belongers’ masked what were, essentially, racial distinctions. Immigration policy was racialized, and the appeal to belonging was little more than a gloss on the racial logic which underpinned the legislation. The political response to colonial immigration developed in three distinct phases, in which the concepts of citizenship and belonging – and the relationship between them – were redefined and renegotiated: • 1948–61: The period of imperial citizenship. A multiracial, imperial citizenship was created, which incorporated both colonial and UKborn subjects under one legal concept, CUKC. As colonial immigration developed, ad hoc attempts at limitation were made, with little success. • 1962–81: The period of exclusion. The rights of citizenship were differentiated according to ‘belonging’, until citizenship was eventually redefined so as to map onto the idea of ‘belonging’. • 1980s to the present: The period of renegotiation. Having largely controlled the entry of ‘non-belongers’, attention turned to the social and cultural effects of immigrant communities on British society. At first this response was largely negative, in the sense that such communities were often perceived as a ‘problem’ or a ‘threat’. More recently, there has been a rethinking of what it means to belong to British society – a diversification of belonging – and a reconstruction of citizenship. This is a fitful and ongoing process. In this chapter I explore the first and second periods – the turn from imperial citizenship to exclusion – while the more recent developments of the period of renegotiation will be considered in Chapter 7.

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 19

2

Imperial citizens, ‘coloured’ immigrants

The 1948 British Nationality Act and the onset of colonial immigration Nineteen forty-eight was a watershed year in the history of citizenship and immigration in Britain. In June, the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury and several hundred Jamaican immigrants disembarked to make a new life in Britain; a month later, several miles upstream at Westminster, the British Nationality Act received Royal Assent. The 1948 British Nationality Act (BNA 1948) created the expansive citizenship category of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) which underlay and constrained subsequent immigration policy. The Act was not passed with immigration in mind however. It had a constitutional purpose, and was not expected to facilitate immigration from the Empire or Commonwealth. Neither in the Parliamentary debates over the Bill, nor at any other stage of the deliberations ‘was the possibility discussed that substantial numbers [of CUKCs] could exercise their right to reside permanently in the United Kingdom’.8 The architects of BNA 1948 simply did not conceive that the statutory right of entry to Britain which was granted to all colonial citizens as CUKCs would be exercised. Imperial migration had always been dominated by movement, largely emigration, between Britain and the ‘Old Commonwealth’ of Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The Act was in fact prompted by the decision of the Canadian Government to introduce their own citizenship, as a result of which Canadians would possess British subjecthood in consequence of their being Canadian citizens. This hardly seems the stuff of constitutional revolution, but it was viewed by the British Government as a breach of the indivisibility of subjecthood throughout the Empire and Commonwealth. BNA 1948 rectified the situation by creating an imperial citizenship for the United Kingdom and colonies that conferred British subject status through legislation at Westminster.9 If BNA 1948 was not passed with immigration in mind, it nevertheless had definitive consequences for subsequent immigration policymaking. In effect, the Labour Government had enshrined the right of colonial-born citizens to settle and work in the United Kingdom. The creation of a multiracial citizenship would have been unproblematic if migration continued its usual pattern of movement between the Mother Country and the Old (white) Commonwealth. The development of non-white colonial immigration, however, would expose the idea of equal imperial citizenship as a sham. For despite the rhetoric of

20 Citizenship and Belonging

Civis Britannicus sum,10 the United Kingdom’s imperial citizenship was without any foundation in a substantive idea of belonging. As we shall see in this and the next chapter, Britishness, understood as belonging to the national community, was a racialized notion: in the minds of British officials and the British public at large it entailed whiteness. By conferring a uniform legal status upon a variety of peoples who were perceived to be anything but uniform in their belonging to the British national community, the architects of BNA 1948 had unwittingly created an obstacle to future immigration controls. Not only did they render any future immigration to Britain from its colonies an exercise of legitimate citizenship rights, they simultaneously foreclosed the possibility of controlling any such immigration without primary legislation either superseding the category of CUKC or discriminating between holders of CUKC passports. The unintended and ‘tentacular’ effects of BNA 1948 would be felt throughout the post-war period.11 A month before BNA 1948 was given Royal Assent, the Empire Windrush had docked at Tilbury with 492 Jamaican immigrants on board. Politicians and civil servants went into paroxysms over the arrival: questions were asked in Parliament about this ‘great disappointment’; a group of Labour MPs wrote to the Prime Minister requesting immediate immigration controls; and the Colonial Secretary reassured the Cabinet that it had not been organized by his department or by the Jamaican Government (see Chapter 3 for a fuller discussion of these reactions). The Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, demanded to know ‘who organised this incursion?’12 In fact, nobody had. The arrival of the Windrush marked the beginning of a largely spontaneous migration driven by a range of factors, including overpopulation and high levels of unemployment in the Caribbean; an awareness of labour shortages in the United Kingdom; the experience of many West Indians stationed in Britain during the war, especially as ground crew in the Royal Air Force; and the decreasing cost of international travel through the 1950s and 1960s. It is important to emphasize that this migration was both unexpected and unwelcome. A prevalent myth about post-war immigration is that it was largely government-sponsored or encouraged. This is misleading at best. Although there were some recruitment schemes of West Indian labour – notably by London Transport, the National Health Service, and British hoteliers – these were limited in scope and accounted for a minority of immigrants.13 The majority of immigrants from the New Commonwealth made their way to Britain on their own initiative, at their own expense and without a pre-arranged job or

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 21

home to come to. The myth of invitation can be seen as part of a broader discourse which represents the decolonization process and the British Empire in general as a benevolent and reciprocal arrangement. This myth makes the development of restrictionist policies look like responses to a migration that was at first welcomed and then only opposed as it became unmanageable. As Ian Spencer has shown, this rests on a falsification of early British responses to colonial immigration and a misunderstanding of why restrictive legislation did not occur earlier than it did.14 The ‘open door’ and administrative controls Despite the lack of an immediate legislative response, the Government’s approach to colonial immigration during the 1950s was restrictive; while the door remained officially open, it did try to pull it shut. Initially, a series of ad hoc administrative measures were put in place in an attempt to control the number of immigrants arriving in Britain. In addition, working parties and committees were established to investigate and report on the ‘problem’. As the deliberations of the various committees figure prominently in later chapters, I shall concentrate here on the policy of obstruction and the reasons why a legislative response did not develop at this time. During the 1950s the Conservative Governments tried to limit colonial immigration through a ‘panoply of measures’ aimed at preventing colonial CUKCs from emigrating.15 These included inducements to colonial and Commonwealth governments to limit the issue of passports and other travel documents (this was more successful in South Asia than in Africa or the Caribbean, where governments were less than cooperative); tightening of the rules about proof of identity required from those arriving in the United Kingdom; propaganda in Jamaica about the difficult (cold!) conditions in Britain; and attempts to intervene in the market in low fare transatlantic passages. Ian Spencer goes so far as to describe this as a ‘de facto immigration policy’.16 This policy of obstruction was acknowledged retrospectively in a 1961 Parliamentary debate, after the government had announced its decision to introduce an immigration bill. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, reported how: ‘knowing our difficulties, some Commonwealth Governments have taken steps over the last few years to limit the number of people coming here by various methods, and we are very grateful to them. Several of them have used methods to discourage this mass movement’, but at the current levels, the ‘influx … can hardly continue uncontrolled’.17

22 Citizenship and Belonging

While the policy of obstruction went publicly unannounced in the 1950s, it was widely acknowledged behind closed doors, as the following 1954 memorandum by the Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to the Cabinet indicates: In accordance with Ministerial directions, such administrative action as is possible to discourage immigration of coloured people into this country from the colonies has been taken over the last few years. For instance, special action has been taken in colonial territories to make stowing away on ships more difficult by tightening dock control. The governments of West African territories have taken special steps to hinder the issue of passports and travel documents to men not known to follow regular employment and whose financial position is not sound. In those colonial territories from which most of the coloured immigrants come publicity has been given to the fact that accommodation over here is hard to find and unskilled workers have difficulty in getting employment. In this country immigration officers have been given instructions to require strict proof of British nationality and to refuse leave to land to stowaways and others who cannot produce written evidence that they are British subjects.18 If the creation of administrative obstacles reveals the Government’s desire to impede and limit colonial immigration, the question arises why restrictive legislation was not passed until 1962. Statutory controls would have been the most efficient and swift way of limiting the number of immigrants entering the country. Why were they not implemented sooner? A combination of idealistic and pragmatic factors explains the Government’s reluctance to introduce immigration legislation. In order to appreciate this it is necessary to attend to both the public and private expressions of policy-makers. Although immigration did not figure at the top of the public agenda before the early 1960s, behind the scenes it was the cause of significant concern. Moreover, not only was a great deal more being said about immigration behind closed doors during the 1950s, there were also differences of emphasis in what was being said. In public, the rhetoric of indivisible subjecthood under the Crown and the idea that the Commonwealth was the natural heir to the British Empire were regularly cited to explain why immigration legislation was inappropriate; immigration legislation, it was argued, would undermine Commonwealth unity. These considerations certainly figured in

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 23

internal government debates, but more in terms of realpolitik than sentimental attachment. In both public and in private, then, the doctrine of Civis Britannicus sum exercised a powerful influence over immigration policy, indeed, it was arguably the major brake on a move towards restrictive legislation. The doctrine was founded on the idea that all British subjects, owing their allegiance to and enjoying an identical relationship with the sovereign, could claim identical privileges and protections of the United Kingdom. This idea was prevalent in imperial rhetoric and, more importantly, was central to British attempts to develop a Commonwealth identity as former colonies attained independence. It is therefore essential to note that colonial immigration developed at the same time as the British Government was negotiating the process of decolonization, replacing a formal empire with a sphere of influence. As Peter Hennessy has written, ‘the Attlee government took the first steps towards changing an empire sustained by territory into a commonwealth based on influence’,19 and these steps were continued by subsequent administrations throughout the post-war period. Legislation restricting the right of CUKCs to enter and settle in the United Kingdom would have undermined the rhetoric of Civis Britannicus sum and antagonized the fledgling governments of New Commonwealth countries. This train of thought was especially prevalent in parts of the Conservative Party, which enjoyed uninterrupted control of government during the 1950s. Many Conservatives had a strong attachment to the Empire/Commonwealth and were keen to foster good Commonwealth relations.20 Numerous references were made to ‘the traditional freedom to move between Britain and the Commonwealth’21 as a manifestation of the Commonwealth ideal. Henry Hopkinson, Minister of State for Colonial Affairs in the Churchill Government, encapsulated this attitude when he told the House of Commons in 1954: In a world in which restrictions on personal movement and immigration have increased we still take pride in the fact that a man [sic] can say Civis Britannicus sum whatever his colour may be, and we take pride in the fact that he wants and can come to the Mother country.22 When the Macmillan Government finally took the decision to legislate, this imperial attachment was not thrown off lightly (for example, in the Second Reading of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill in November 1961, Rab Butler acknowledged the gravity of ending the ‘traditional open door policy’).23

24 Citizenship and Belonging

However, despite these sentiments, it is important to stress that as far as migration was concerned the doctrine of Civis Britannicus sum meant a commitment to movement between the Old (white) Commonwealth and the United Kingdom.24 Therefore, it is hardly surprising that as Old Commonwealth countries sought to pursue their interests within a regional framework rather than within the Commonwealth, so support for the doctrine declined and one of the major obstacles to immigration controls was removed. This was exacerbated by the fact that many New Commonwealth countries foreswore allegiance to the Crown and remained within the Commonwealth as republics.25 Hence, as the importance of the Commonwealth declined and the Macmillan Government looked increasingly to Europe,26 the major impediment to ending the freedom of movement of CUKCs fell away. In Whitehall, this was apparent in the declining influence of the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office, which had direct effects on immigration policy-making since these departments were generally the most sympathetic to the interests of colonial citizens. Even before this decline, and notwithstanding the powerful countervailing arguments, such was the concern over colonial immigration that legislation was a constant point of debate. In August 1955, a draft bill to control immigration was actually presented to and debated by the Cabinet. In the event, no legislation was forthcoming: in November the Cabinet decided not to legislate as the ‘problem’ was not yet serious enough and there was a significant political price attached to legislative action; a Cabinet committee was established to monitor developments and consider possible future controls.27 It was at this first Cabinet-level discussion of possible legislation that the distinction between citizenship and belonging was proposed as the rationale for potential controls. The point was made in a committee report presented to the Cabinet for consideration. The committee considered what form future immigration legislation should take and viewed one option as a bill: to bring within its scope without exception all British subjects not belonging to the United Kingdom, including citizens of Commonwealth countries, inhabitants of British colonial territories, British protected persons and also citizens of the Irish Republic who are not British subjects but who are by our law to be treated as such.28 On this account, it will be noted, the range of ‘British subjects’ deemed not to belong was broad, and included Irish citizens. The previous year,

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 25

however, when the citizenship/belonging distinction was adumbrated by the Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd-George, a more prescient interpretation had been adopted. Lloyd-George assured the Cabinet that in any legislation ‘there would of course be no question of interfering with the right of persons belonging to the United Kingdom to come and go as they please’. Furthermore, ‘nor would it be necessary or desirable to extend the control to citizens of the Irish Republic’.29 On Lloyd-George’s account, then, while the Irish were not considered to belong they were not to be excluded by immigration legislation either. This is indeed what happened in 1962: neither citizens nor ‘belongers’, Irish immigrants were nevertheless excluded in practice from immigration controls. What this implied about the logic of the controls is something to which I shall return below.

3

Restricting ‘citizens who do not belong’

The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act Perhaps surprisingly, during the second half of the 1950s the net intake of colonial citizens actually declined (see Chapter 3 Table 3.1). As rumours spread that immigration controls were imminent a record net immigration of 191,100 was recorded for 1960–1, more than for the previous five years combined.30 The rumours which fuelled the rush to ‘beat the ban’ were well-founded: in May 1961, the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants warned in a memorandum to the Cabinet that the ‘movement was reaching a stage at which the Government would be obliged to introduce legislation to enable them to control it’.31 Five months later, the Cabinet considered a draft Bill, and in the Queen’s Speech on 31 October the intention to restrict immigration was announced.32 Various aspects of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act and the reasoning which led up to it are discussed in the following chapters; here I shall focus on a key contention surrounding the Bill – the de facto exclusion of Irish immigrants – which is germane to our theme of citizenship and belonging. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 (CIA 1962) marked a second watershed in the history of citizenship and immigration. For the first time, the right of British subjects to enter the ‘mother country’ was restricted. CIA 1962 brought to a close the period of imperial citizenship and began a new exclusionary phase in the politics of immigration which would last until 1981. This phase would see the differentiation of citizenship rights according to belonging and, eventually, the redefinition of citizenship in terms of descent.

26 Citizenship and Belonging

As Rieko Karatani has argued, ‘after the enactment of the CIA 1962, immigration law rather than citizenship law was used to define who “belonged”, and consequently what it meant to “belong”, to Britain’.33 Although these developments could hardly have been anticipated at the time, the momentousness of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill was not lost on MPs, and the legislation had a stormy passage through Parliament. The Labour Opposition, under Hugh Gaitskell, vociferously attacked the Bill, arguing that it was racist and harmful to race relations in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. The controversy focused on the de facto exclusion of Irish citizens from immigration controls. The Government actually included powers to control Irish immigration in the Bill, but made it clear in Parliament that they did not intend to exercise them: while colonial CUKCs would be subject to immigration controls, in practice Irish citizens would continue to enjoy unrestricted entry. To many MPs the privileging of Irish citizens over colonial CUKCs revealed the government’s racist intent: Patrick Gordon-Walker (Lab.) memorably summed up this perception when he described Rab Butler’s nominal inclusion of the Irish as a ‘fig leaf to preserve his reputation for liberalism. Now he stands revealed before us in his nakedness. He is an advocate now of a Bill which contains bare-faced, open race discrimination’.34 Irish exceptionalism in UK citizenship and immigration law had a long pedigree. Its origins dated back to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, although the ‘Irish Question’ had been rethought following Ireland’s foundation as a republic and withdrawal from the Commonwealth. In response, the then Labour Government had passed the Ireland Act of 1949, under which the Republic of Ireland was officially recognized, as was its secession from the Commonwealth. Citizens of the Republic retained the rights that had been conferred on them by BNA 1948, in effect identical rights to CUKCs. Speaking in the Second Reading of the Ireland Bill in May 1949, Clement Attlee spelt out the situation to the House of Commons: ‘an Eire citizen in the United Kingdom gets automatically the same treatment under our existing laws as if he were a British subject’.35 A complex set of factors influenced the creation of this legal oddity, including political, practical and demographic concerns.36 Suffice to say that while there were undoubtedly practical problems associated with policing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, the ready flow of Irish labour was also viewed as beneficial to the British economy and Irish immigrants were seen to be relatively unproblematic due to what Kathleen Paul has called their ‘demographic

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 27

acceptability’.37 For example, at the Cabinet meeting in November 1948, in which Eire’s decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth was considered, it was claimed that Ireland enjoyed a ‘specially close relationship’ born of ‘historical, racial and geographical links’ with Britain. Such ‘ties of kinship’ and the ‘ties of blood, history and intermingling of peoples which bound Eire to the older countries of the Commonwealth’ did not exist for any ‘Asiatic country’. With the recent experience of Indian independence within the British Commonwealth probably in mind, it was revealingly suggested that such ‘arguments could not be used in support of a claim that an Asiatic country could still be regarded as not being “foreign” to Commonwealth countries after it ceased to be a member of the Commonwealth’.38 Thirteen years later the Irish anomaly would become the most contentious aspect of a Bill primarily directed at ‘Asiatic’ and Caribbean immigration. In its original form it was intended that the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill would apply to Irish immigrants. Indeed, when introducing the Bill in 1961, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was questioned by Gaitskell about whether the Irish were to be included, to which he replied without equivocation: ‘It applies to Ireland, certainly’.39 However, the proper application of the legislation to the Irish was soon dropped due to the same combination of practical expedience and demographic acceptability that had informed the 1948–9 deliberations. The Home Secretary, Rab Butler, suggested that in order to forestall criticisms that the Government was privileging Irish citizens over colonial CUKCs the Irish could be nominally included in the Bill, but excluded in practice. As Randall Hansen has pointed out, this was an ‘extremely weak strategy’ which failed to convince sceptical MPs when it came to the key debates.40 Butler’s Cabinet colleagues, with the notable exception of Duncan Sandys, were nevertheless unanimous in support of the de jure inclusion and de facto exemption. Why, given the difficulty they were likely to face in Parliament, were the Conservatives united around this unconvincing strategy? The Government faced a dilemma. The exemption of Irish citizens from the controls that were to be imposed on colonial CUKCs was generating a great deal of interest because it did look like preferential treatment; yet there were genuine practical and political difficulties with imposing controls. The tenor of debate around 1961–2 suggest that these difficulties were at least equally important as racial demography – the ‘ties of blood, history and intermingling’ – and they were certainly more immediate. One civil servant pointed out that control of Irish immigration would require ‘detailed controls on the ports between

28 Citizenship and Belonging

England [sic] and Ireland’ as well as the policing of the Northern Irish border which would be ‘virtually impossible’. Such controls would be ‘politically undesirable and administratively costly’. If patrolling the land border was ‘virtually impossible’ then the only way of imposing an efficacious control would have been to police movement between Northern Ireland and Great Britain; in other words, impose a control internal to the United Kingdom, a move which would have been strongly opposed by Northern Irish Unionists. Butler made his opposition to this course of action clear: the Government was not willing to ‘subject our own people in Northern Ireland to a passport control every time they pass from one part of the United Kingdom to another, and without such an arrangement the practical difficulties of operating an effective control over movement from the Irish Republic are very formidable indeed’.41 The full name of the Conservative Party was, after all, the Conservative and Unionist Party, and the undesirability therefore had an additional, party political aspect. Butler wrote to Macmillan on 24 November telling him that ‘whilst there are some hankerings still after immigration control it is generally realised that this would alienate the Northern Irish and strain their loyalty to the Party’.42 Equally important was the fact that Ireland continued to provide a flexible source of labour which was held in high regard by British policy-makers, and there was a widespread desire to maintain this labour source amongst most government departments.43 As one civil servant wrote in a memorandum to the Prime Minister in November 1961, ‘we do not want to exclude the Southern Irish … we need them’.44 It need hardly be said that there were very few people making similar arguments about colonial immigrants in late 1961. Nevertheless, the de facto exemption of Irish immigrants from controls was so controversial that it threatened to wreck the Bill. During the Second Reading on 16 November, the Irish were referred to as a ‘social liability’ by one MP, and many others who were not antipathetic to Irish immigration per se expressed serious reservations.45 Indeed, there was a real danger that a large number of Conservative MPs would vote against the Government.46 At the same time, and quite plausibly, opponents of the Bill on the Opposition benches claimed that arguments about ‘our overcrowded island’ were shown to be fallacious by the fact that the Government was prepared to continue free entry for the 50,000 or so Irish immigrants who arrived annually in Britain; what really motivated the legislation, they argued, was a racist concern to keep out black and Asian CUKCs. Notwithstanding the very real political and practical difficulties the Government faced, it is hard to disagree with the claim that racial

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 29

attitudes underlay the differential treatment. The British Government even held informal negotiations with Dublin, in which the Irish Government agreed to police its ports to prevent West Indians from using them as an access point to the United Kingdom as a quid pro quo for the exemption of Irish citizens.47 In the final Bill, the Home Secretary was given reserve powers to control Irish immigration – he could order ‘examination of passengers at the usual ports of entry from the Republic’48 – but there was never any intention to use this power and the Government admitted that its inclusion was a tactical manoeuvre.49 Two concessions were made in order to appease opponents of the Irish exemption: research into, and then reconsideration of Irish immigration before the Act came up for renewal in a year’s time; and an emphasis upon the fact that Irish citizens arriving from somewhere other than Ireland would be subject to control.50 In the end the strategy worked to prevent a Conservative rebellion and the Act received the Royal Assent on 18 April 1962. The main provisions of CIA 1962 were as follows: • Immigration controls were applied to all Commonwealth citizens except those born in the United Kingdom, those holding a UK passport issued under the authority of the UK Government, or those included in the passport of the above (though these controls would not in practice be applied to Irish citizens). • An employment voucher scheme was established through which successful applicants could enter the United Kingdom. Vouchers were issued in three categories: o Category A for people with a specific job offer from an employer; o Category B for those who possessed training or skills in short supply or deemed useful to Britain; o Category C for workers without specific skills or a job offer. An annual quota for each category was set by the government and operated on a first come, first served basis. The original annual quota for Categories A and B was 20,800 and for Category C it was 10,000. Category C was variable and could be changed according to the needs of the British economy. • Dependants had a right of entry. Dependants were defined in the Act as the wives and children under the age of 16 of primary immigrants (see Chapter 5 for more on this). • Immigrants could be refused admission if they had been convicted of a crime which was subject to extradition, were considered by the Home Secretary to pose a national security risk, or were judged by a

30 Citizenship and Belonging

medical inspector to be suffering from a mental disorder or to be a public health risk (this last point is discussed in Chapter 6). • Finally, all those subject to control could be deported if they were over 17 years of age and were convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment. This power of deportation of colonial citizens extended for five years after entry. Three points merit comment at this stage. First, although the core of the legislation was the employment voucher scheme, it is important to note that other possible criteria for entry had been considered (based on an immigrant’s health or the availability of housing), only to be rejected as unworkable. This warns us away from making the apparently reasonable, but in fact false inference that because CIA 1962 employed a labour-based scheme the legislation was chiefly motivated by economic concerns. As Butler told the Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee in July 1961: ‘we must recognise that reference to employment would be the means of controlling immigration and not the grounds for doing so’ (for an extended discussion of the noneconomic rationale behind CIA 1962 see Chapter 4).51 Second, the exemption from controls was made on two grounds: place of birth or the issuing authority of a CUKC passport. Persons born in Britain were exempt. In addition, persons born outside of Britain who were the holders of a CUKC passport issued under the authority of London were also exempt; whereas those born outside of Britain with a CUKC passport issued under the authority of a colonial government were not. The exemption of those CUKCs with passports issued under the authority of London would prove to be of tremendous significance in 1968, as we shall see below. Finally, although the Government flatly denied that there was a racist motivation behind the Bill, it was quite open in admitting that it was intended to restrict citizens who did not ‘belong’. Rab Butler made this clear in his speech to the House of Commons in 1962 when he stated that an objective of the legislation was to except from control persons ‘who in common parlance belong to the United Kingdom’. This was achieved ‘by excepting, first, persons born in the United Kingdom, and secondly, persons holding passports issued by the United Kingdom government’.52 The distinction between citizenship and belonging would be made much more explicit six years later, but in 1962 it was clear nonetheless that ‘belonging’ was restricted to indigenous Britons and those who had passports issued by the UK Government. As we shall see in Chapter 3, there can be little doubt

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 31

that the decision to legislate was driven by racial demographic considerations, and the recourse to belonging was a way of legitimating what was essentially a racially motivated act. This contention is reinforced by the Irish exemption which, practical considerations notwithstanding, illustrated that immigration per se was not seen to be undesirable, but rather a certain type of immigration. Between the Acts With CIA 1962 in place the Government was able to exercise a degree of control over both the size and composition (in terms of labour skills) of colonial immigration. Government initiatives now began to focus as much on the integration of immigrants already in Britain as on restriction. A policy package of restrictive immigration legislation combined with race relations and integrationist measures was developed in the mid-1960s, described by Shamit Saggar as a ‘limitationintegration equation’.53 This ‘deft policy linkage’, orchestrated by the Labour Government which came to power in October 1964, aimed ‘to make the maintenance and extension of immigration controls more acceptable by linking these with positive measures for integrating migrants’.54 Indeed, the limitation-integration equation was developed as a political strategy to maintain support from opposed constituencies within the Labour Party, as well as the country as a whole. The intention was to appease anti-immigrant sentiment by restrictive immigration controls and simultaneously placate progressives with race relations legislation and integrationist measures.55 These measures, which included the establishment of various advisory bodies as well as the provision of grants to local authorities with responsibility for immigrant groups, can be viewed as nascent attempts to render colonial immigrants as ‘belongers’ in the British national community. Although generally pursued with benign intent, the integrationist efforts were flawed in two important ways: firstly, since Britishness remained a racialized idea, there were limits to how ‘integrated’ colonial immigrants could become at this stage; and secondly, ‘integration’ was seen as very much a one-way street. Indeed, the word ‘assimilation’ was used as frequently as ‘integration’, with the implication that the burden of adaptation lay squarely with immigrants rather than the host society. At the same time as new integrationist measures were put in place, the Wilson Government also developed a race relations policy in the form of anti-discrimination legislation. The whole approach was succinctly expressed by Roy Hattersley: ‘integration without control is impossible but control without integration is

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indefensible’.56 The underlying logic was that only a limited number of colonial immigrants could be successfully integrated into British society. While there were developments in this direction earlier – for example, CIA 1962 had established the first body for the integration of immigrants in the form of the Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council (CIAC), and during the Second Reading Butler had claimed that ‘the greater the number [of colonial immigrants] coming into this country the … more difficult it will be to integrate them into our national life’57 – under the Labour Government the linkage was both more explicit and more extensive than it had been under the Conservatives. The fulcrum of this policy, and the major staging post between the two Commonwealth Immigrants Acts, was the 1965 White Paper, Immigration from the Commonwealth. As the White Paper was being prepared for publication in August 1965, Lord Mountbatten was requested by the government to lead a mission to various Commonwealth countries in order to assess the possibility of their restricting further emigration to Britain by the application of administrative obstacles.58 His mission was, by all accounts, a failure. Mountbatten was unsuccessful in his attempts to persuade any of the Commonwealth governments he visited to restrict emigration, and the Pakistani Government refused to meet him at all. A report was produced nonetheless, which recommended the abolition of Category C, a reduction in the number of A and B vouchers that were issued, compulsory medical examinations for would-be immigrants in their country of origin, and a tightening up of the dependants clause.59 Despite the similarity between his recommendations and the provisions of the White Paper, the influence of Mountbatten’s mission has been shown to be minimal, since many aspects of the Government’s statement were agreed before he had even returned.60 In the White Paper the Government announced the discontinuation of Category C (by this time applicants in Categories A and B more than made up the overall annual quotas) and an overall reduction in the number of labour vouchers from 20,800 to 8,500 per year.61 As well as further tightening controls, the White Paper also made provision for integrationist measures, including the establishment of the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI). The White Paper’s conclusion indicated the new emphasis on integration: the good name of Britain, our relations with other members of the Commonwealth, and, above all, justice and common humanity, demand that Commonwealth immigrants in this country should be

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absorbed into our community without friction and with mutual understanding and tolerance.62 To this end, in 1965 the first Race Relations Act (RRA 1965) was also passed.63 Although limited in its scope – only discrimination in public places was outlawed, thus omitting the critical areas of housing and employment – the Act was important for the precedent it set in outlawing racist discrimination and for establishing the first public body to enforce non-discrimination in the form of the Race Relations Board. Zig Layton-Henry’s claim that RRA 1965 was ‘declaratory rather than effective or efficient’64 is undoubtedly accurate, nevertheless, an important principle had been broached which would issue in more effective legislation in 1968 and 1976. The Government also established a Commonwealth Immigration Sub-Committee on Integration in 1965, which was responsible for the consideration and proposal of initiatives aimed at promoting integration. These included English language initiatives, the provision of local liaison officers and committees, leaflets on health issues, employment of interpreters at Employment Exchanges, and representation amongst police and magistrates.65 Beyond Whitehall and Westminster there was an exponential growth in ‘expert’ interest in race relations and immigration during this time, manifested in books, articles and academic conferences. Integration, and its cognate terms assimilation and absorption, became buzzwords. Important studies of race relations and immigration appeared from writers such as Paul Foot, Sheila Patterson, John Rex and, in 1969, from Jim Rose for the Institute of Race Relations.66 Conferences with titles like ‘Immigration to Assimilation?’ or ‘East meets West – Pakistanis at Home and in Britain’ were attended by government officials, academics, welfare workers and church leaders.67 In an attempt to generate momentum for more effective anti-discrimination legislation, the Race Relations Board and the NCCI sponsored a report on racial discrimination by the influential think tank, Political and Economic Planning, which won over many fence-sitters.68 While liberals and progressives were showing an interest in race relations and integration, racism and anti-immigrant sentiments remained endemic in British society as a whole. Moreover, in certain areas of the country there were clear political dividends to be gained by adopting an anti-immigrant stance. Most notorious was the 1964 election campaign for the constituency of Smethwick, in which the Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths used the slogan: ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour’.69 Running on an explicitly anti-

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immigration ticket, Griffiths defeated his opponent, the Labour incumbent Patrick Gordon-Walker (quoted above in his opposition to CIA 1962) with a swing of 7.3 per cent to the Conservatives, against a national average swing to Labour of 2.9 per cent. It was widely reported that immigration was the decisive factor in this result.70 In February the following year, the Economist warned that ‘there is a real danger that the next general election … will be fought surreptitiously over race. For parties uneasily balanced in electoral opinion the racial issue, especially in urban seats, may make all the difference next time’.71 In the 1966 election, both of the major parties did indeed make clear statements on immigration in their manifestos. The Conservative manifesto included six points ‘to deal with the problem of immigration’;72 while the Labour Party manifesto made a commitment to ‘realistic controls … combined with an imaginative and determined programme to ensure racial equality’.73 Immigration did not, it is true, explode onto the national political agenda in either 1964 or 1966 in the way that it did in the 1970 election, and the view that a bipartisan consensus emerged during this period to prevent immigration from becoming a central aspect of party politics is broadly accurate.74 However, as Smethwick indicated, in certain areas of the country anti-immigration posturing was a vote winner. Certainly, anti-immigrant sentiment played a key role in the next major policy development. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (CIA 1968) was rushed through Parliament in response to the so-called Kenyan Asians crisis, spurred on by populist pressure to stem the number of colonial immigrants entering Britain. The Labour Government, which in opposition had so vigorously opposed CIA 1962, now intensified immigration controls. For many, then and now, this was a capitulation to racist hysteria and a betrayal of the Kenyan Asian CUKCs, who were left effectively stateless. It was with this Act that the citizenship/belonging distinction was made explicit and established as the basis of who was and who was not subject to immigration controls. Upon independence in 1963, Kenyans of non-African descent were given two years to apply for Kenyan citizenship. The majority of Kenyan Asians opted to retain their CUKC status. As the Kenyatta Government began to persecute them under the guise of an ‘Africanization’ policy, which among other things found them barred from sectors of the economy and sacked from the civil service, those with

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CUKC status began to flee to Britain. These people were not subject to immigration controls due to the mechanism that had been adopted in 1962. Recall that CIA 1962 had excluded from controls those born in the United Kingdom and those holding a UK passport issued under the authority of the UK government. Most colonial citizens held passports issued by colonial governments and were therefore subject to controls. However, the Kenyan Asians (and many other African-Asians) held passports issued under the authority of London and were thus exempt from controls. This anomaly arose from the fact that when the colonial governor of Kenya stood down he assumed the role of High Commissioner, representative of the UK Government in Kenya. All passports previously issued by the colonial government were now issued by the High Commission under the authority of the British Government. Up to 150,000 Kenyan Asians were therefore able freely to enter the United Kingdom and many did so as life in Kenya became increasingly unpleasant for those who did not fit Kenyatta’s idea of a true Kenyan. In Britain, newspapers, radio and television regularly reported on their arrival, and anti-immigrant propagandists warned of the ‘flood’ to come. Public opinion polls showed that around 70 per cent of Britons wanted further controls.75 It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that the decision to legislate was taken so swiftly. On 15 February 1968, the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, sought approval from the Cabinet to introduce immigration legislation, including the withdrawal of the right of Kenyan CUKCs to enter the United Kingdom. On this last point he argued that it was ‘both urgent and essential that immigration control should be extended to citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who did not belong to this country in the sense of having any direct family connection with it or having been naturalised or adopted here’. The flow of East African migrants was increasing and if left unregulated ‘might become a flood’. While cognisant of the ‘obligations’ that the previous government had undertaken upon the independence of Kenya and other colonial territories, and also aware of the international conventions that prohibited the denial of the right of entry to citizens, Callaghan urged the need for action. Deploying the limitation-integration argument, he claimed that an ‘influx’ greater than the country could ‘absorb’ would jeopardize support for the forthcoming Race Relations Bill and undermine the general project of ensuring harmonious race relations.76 Among members of the Cabinet there was general agreement about several of Callaghan’s proposals (relating to clandestine entry, the rights of dependent children, and

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the medical examination of dependants), but on the proposal directed at CUKCs ‘who did not belong’ opinion was divided. The Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, led the opposition, claiming that such a denial would be widely condemned as racial discrimination, was a breach of faith since many Kenyan Asians had been given full citizenship in 1963 without reserve or condition, was contrary to international law, and would be unworkable in practice. The Bill, he argued, ‘creates a second-class category of citizens of this country who have no right of entry into any part of it’. It would render the Kenyan Asians effectively, if not legally, stateless.77 The Attorney General, Sir Elwyn Jones, reported that the Government’s position in relation to international agreements was ‘difficult but not impossible’. He argued that in the case of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on Racial Discrimination and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the action could potentially be justified by the fact ‘that the people concerned did not in any real sense belong to this country’.78 As these debates show, the distinction between citizenship and belonging was now an explicit rationale for immigration controls. Given the disagreements and potential difficulties, a final decision was deferred until the following week. In the meantime, efforts would be made to persuade President Kenyatta to control the amount of emigration from his country, the Indian and Pakistani Governments would be consulted and requested to assist, and the Home Secretary would report on further details relevant to his proposal. At the next Cabinet meeting Callaghan once again insisted that it was ‘essential and urgent’ to impose restrictions immediately as Kenyan Asians were now arriving at a rate of 200–300 a day. ‘If this rate of entry were to continue,’ he warned, ‘the pressures on the social services would be such that large additional expenditure would be required, particularly on education and housing, and our race relations policy would be in jeopardy.’ He argued that the right of entry should be repealed for citizens who were ‘non-belongers’: ‘We should … legislate so as to deprive citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who did not belong to this country … of their automatic right to enter this country.’79 ‘Wide support’, he assured the assembled ministers, ‘could be expected in this country for a policy on these lines’. The Commonwealth Secretary remained opposed to the proposal, but the balance of opinion was against him, and that afternoon the Government tabled a Bill that removed the right of entry for CUKCs ‘with no substantial connection with this country’. Such was the perceived urgency that

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Commonwealth Governments were not consulted, nor were they given prior notification. In the Second Reading, Callaghan portrayed the Bill as an extension of the logic of CIA 1962 by arguing that the new measures simply filled a loophole in the primary legislation. This was accurate enough, as was his reference to Rab Butler’s idea of citizens who do not belong, but his assertion that the Government was ‘fully committed to the development of a multiracial society in Britain’ was staggeringly disingenuous. Despite fierce opposition from both Conservative and Labour MPs,80 who denounced the action as discriminatory and a breach of faith to Kenyan Asian CUKCs, the Bill was passed by Parliament on 1 March 1968. When the Speaker announced to the Commons that the Lords had agreed to the Bill without any amendments and the Royal Assent had been given, several members cried ‘shame’.81 The main provisions of CIA 1968 were as follows: • The exemption from immigration controls (under Section 1 (2) (b) of CIA 1962) of CUKCs holding UK passports would now extend only to persons who had been born, naturalized or adopted in the United Kingdom, or who had at least one parent or grandparent who had been born, naturalized or adopted in the United Kingdom. • Immigration officers were empowered to impose on any immigrant, ‘in the interests of public health and as a condition of admission’, a requirement that he or she report to a medical officer of health (this is discussed in Chapter 6). • It was made an offence to land in the United Kingdom unless examined by an immigration officer. • The period after arrival within which any examination could begin was extended from 24 hours to 28 days. • It was made an offence for the master of a ship or commander of an aircraft to allow a person to land in contravention of Section 4(a) of CIA 1962 if he or she knew or suspected the person’s intention to do so. A quota of entry vouchers for Kenyan Asian ‘non-belongers’ plus dependants was provided for (1,500 heads of households a year plus dependants, making an approximate total of 6,000–7,000).82 Randall Hansen observes that CIA 1968 was ‘loathed by liberal opinion and loved by the public’. While the NCCI hinted at collective resignation and the European Commission of Human Rights ruled that CIA 1968 violated the European Convention on Human Rights, public

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opinion was firmly behind the Act.83 Whilst this assessment is broadly correct, there was also criticism from outside liberal circles: for example, Auberan Waugh wrote in The Spectator that CIA 1968 was ‘one of the most immoral pieces of legislation to have emerged from any British Parliament’. It amounted to ‘autochthonous racism’.84 CIA 1968 was the final nail in the coffin of the rhetoric of Civis Britannicus sum, which had sounded increasingly hollow since 1962 in any case. Within the category of CUKC there were now two distinct statuses, one with the right of entry to the United Kingdom, one without. To use Callaghan’s own terms these were ‘United Kingdom belongers’ and ‘colonial belongers’. The dichotomy between citizenship and belonging, implicit since 1962, was now made the explicit basis for differential rights: CUKCs who were not ‘belongers’ did not have the right to enter and live in the United Kingdom. Many at the time, and many since, saw this as a shameful episode. Considering that around 200,000 individuals holding only UK citizenship were abandoned, effectively stateless, it is hard to disagree with such an assessment. An anomalous status had been created – the rather unwieldy, paradoxical-sounding concept of ‘non-belonging citizens of the UK and Colonies’.85 As I shall argue in the next chapter, this was little more than a gloss on the legislation’s essentially racial demographic purpose. Although all racial motivations were disavowed, in other respects the government exhibited a pellucid self-awareness. As a Home Office memorandum observed, the problematic imperial citizenship of BNA 1948 had come home to roost: It is the anomalous nature of our citizenship that causes difficulty and possible breach of the letter of international agreements, in that we have a single citizenship for the United Kingdom and the Colonies. This seemed the right course in 1948. To have created separate citizenships for the individual colonies, or for the colonies as a whole, at that time would certainly have encouraged premature claims to independence. Further, the colonies were not separate entities in international law, responsible for external relations and capable of taking diplomatic action to protect citizens abroad. The same difficulty prevents us now from separating citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies and creating one orthodox citizenship for the United Kingdom and a separate one for people who do not belong to the United Kingdom. There is still the unanswerable question that this latter group would be citizens of no country with a separate identity in international law which could look after their interests.86

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The Heath Government and the 1971 Immigration Act The period of exclusion did not end there however. Just three years after CIA 1968, the Heath Government fulfilled its election pledge to reform immigration legislation with the passage of the 1971 Immigration Bill through Parliament. The Conservatives had resolved to toughen their approach to immigration following Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in April 1968. Although Heath dismissed Powell from the Shadow Cabinet for his ‘racialist’ speech, the latter’s popularity forced a reconsideration of party policy.87 The Conservative Party manifesto for the 1970 election promised to reform immigration law to give the Home Secretary ‘complete control, subject to the machinery for appeal, over the entry of individuals into Britain’. The desired result was plainly stated: ‘There will be no further large scale permanent immigration’.88 The simplest way to achieve this would have been to overhaul BNA 1948 and create a new category of citizenship (this was Enoch Powell’s preferred option).89 However, the complexity of such an undertaking and ongoing concern that Commonwealth governments might be alienated prevented the Conservatives from making such a radical proposal. Instead, the Immigration Bill introduced the concept of ‘patriality’ into UK immigration law, and defined those with the right of entry and abode as ‘patrials’. Patriality required a close family connection to the United Kingdom. There were three main ways a person could qualify for patrial status: he or she was a UK-born CUKC, or had been resident in the United Kingdom for more than five years, or had a parent or grandparent born in the United Kingdom (the grandparent clause was dropped at the Committee Stage but reintroduced through new immigration rules in 1973). This last way to qualify for patriality had the effect of ensuring access for many Old (white) Commonwealth citizens, but denied it to nearly all New Commonwealth citizens. The Cabinet deliberations leading up to the introduction of the Bill shows why the Government opted to develop the logic of differentiated citizenship rights. In November 1970, the Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, reported to the Cabinet that work was proceeding on the draft of a bill along the lines set out in the Conservative manifesto.90 At the first Cabinet meeting of the new year, Maudling put a memorandum before the Cabinet which summarized the Bill’s main provisions and outlined points of difficulty. The main thrust was to remove any remaining statutory rights of entry enjoyed by Commonwealth citizens and create a requirement that in future immigrants would need a work permit ‘for

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a specific job at a specific place’. Furthermore, only skilled immigrants would be issued with permits. This meant that the criteria for permits for Commonwealth citizens would be stiffer than for aliens (who could receive permits for semi and unskilled labour). Maudling argued that this was necessary because unlike aliens, who filled unskilled and semiskilled jobs – for example, in hotels and restaurants – and then returned to their country of origin, Commonwealth immigrants recruited to such jobs ‘would wish to settle here, and the problems of control would be insuperable’.91 A further problem discussed in the memorandum was how to maintain access for the Old Commonwealth. Maudling claimed that ‘there is an arguable case, on kith and kin grounds, for special provision for those Commonwealth citizens who have an ancestral connection with the United Kingdom’. But it was difficult to achieve this objective without ‘discriminating between different members of the Commonwealth’.92 The way round this, Maudling suggested, was to create an exemption from immigration controls for those with a parent or grandparent born or naturalized in the United Kingdom. This would allow entry for many Old Commonwealth citizens – especially Australians and New Zealanders – which would avoid resentment from those countries (the assumption being that their resentment was more significant than that of New Commonwealth countries). Thus the concept of patriality was born. As Maudling noted in his presentation to the Cabinet, the Bill was intended ‘to prevent a resurgence of “New” Commonwealth immigration’ because ‘such a resurgence would inflame community relations in Britain’. Taking over the baton of the previous Government’s limitation-integration equation, he argued that ‘the success of our policies aimed at improving community relations was basically dependent on the Government’s maintaining firm and demonstrable control over the admission of immigrants’.93 The Cabinet considered his proposals and agreed that the control mechanism should be based on skills rather than on a quota. The operation of more stringent criteria for Commonwealth citizens than aliens ‘would lead to charges of discrimination; but given the propensity of “New” Commonwealth immigrants, in contrast to aliens, to settle permanently and to bring in their dependants, this safeguard was both necessary and defensible’. On the question of an exemption for the Old Commonwealth based on a ‘direct ancestral link’ the Cabinet agreed that ‘although such a concession would probably attract some criticism as being discriminatory in favour of the “white” Commonwealth, it was defensible as being a clear reflection of our unique relationship with the “old”

Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 41

Commonwealth countries’.94 Quite what this relationship amounted to apart from its racial aspect was unspecified. Some members of the Cabinet wanted to go further and exempt all Old Commonwealth citizens, irrespective of whether they had a parent or grandparent born in the United Kingdom, but it was felt that this would stretch credulity: Although such a concession would be welcome in the ‘old’ Commonwealth and in this country, it would be difficult to defend against charges that we were discriminating against the ‘new’ Commonwealth and giving to nationals of the ‘new’ Commonwealth a special status which it could be argued was contrary to the concept of the Commonwealth as a multiracial institution.95 Despite this passing thought to the Commonwealth as a ‘multiracial institution’ there was a clear racial logic to the proposed legislation: the patriality provisions were designed to secure access for Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders while denying it to the New Commonwealth.96 The Cabinet agreed with the Home Secretary’s proposals and he was asked by Heath to complete the drafting ready for presentation to Parliament. The Government faced a difficult time in the legislature, especially at the committee stage. In committee, an amendment was carried which effectively removed the grandparental concession and restricted the patriality clause to those with a UK-born parent.97 The Home Secretary expressed dismay at this because it ‘substantially reduce[s] the value of the intended patrial concession to the old Commonwealth’ but recommended to the Cabinet that any attempt to restore the grandparental provision would be politically difficult and might jeopardize other parts of the Bill.98 The Cabinet ‘reluctantly accepted’ his recommendation.99 Thus a patrial was defined in narrow terms as a person who was born or had a parent who had been born in the United Kingdom. The concept of patriality came in for an enormous amount of criticism, but it was little more than an extension of the logic that had governed the creation of ‘citizens who belong’ in 1968. Within the category of CUKC two new statuses were created: patrial and nonpatrial citizens. For the purposes of immigration controls this was not a significant departure from the idea of ‘belonging’ and ‘non-belonging’ citizens. Those who attacked the 1971 Immigration Act (IA 1971) as racist had good grounds for doing so, but they tended to overlook the fact that it was neither more nor less racist than CIA 1968.

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Furthermore, those who rounded on the Heath Government had to acknowledge the following year that its reaction to the Ugandan Asians crisis compared favourably to the Wilson Government’s response to the plight of the Kenyan Asians four years earlier. In the face of tabloid sensationalism and opposition from figures such as Enoch Powell, the Government accepted its obligation to the approximately 57,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin. While this gave a boost to the right-wing of the Party (notably the Monday Club), helped the growth of the National Front, and probably contributed to the Government’s defeat over the new immigration rules in November 1972, it was an unusual instance of a principled refusal to bow to anti-immigrant pressure.100 Nevertheless, IA 1971 did represent a serious diminution of New Commonwealth citizens’ rights relative to both aliens and Old Commonwealth citizens: for the purposes of immigration controls most non-white Commonwealth citizens were now in a worse position than aliens, and, as we saw above, the Government had conspired to create an immigration system that would minimize the entry of nonwhite CUKCs from the New Commonwealth whilst ensuring entry for significant numbers of white CUKCs from the Old Commonwealth. This awkward assemblage of citizenship and immigration legislation continued for another ten years, until the period of exclusion was brought to a close by the 1981 British Nationality Act’s redefinition of citizenship in terms of belonging.

4

The end of an era: The 1981 British Nationality Act

The passage of the 1981 British Nationality Act marked the closing of a chapter in British imperial history. The imperial citizenship schema was finally abolished and a definition of British (as opposed to UK) citizenship was created. The strategy of restricting citizenship rights through immigration legislation, which defined the period of exclusion, was abandoned; citizenship was itself redefined, and the open definition of 1948 replaced with a more exclusive conception.101 Thus the political community was aligned with the national community. By the late 1970s, it was apparent that the complex body of immigration laws which built upon and differentiated rights within the category of CUKC was in need of rationalization. Increasingly cumbersome and even contradictory refinements had been made since 1948; unwieldy concepts such as ‘non-belonging citizens’ and patriality had allowed policy-makers to control colonial immigration, but it was inevitable that the category of CUKC would have to be revised in a

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post-imperial context. By 1977 there was a cross-party consensus on the need for reform. That year the Labour Government issued a Green Paper entitled British Nationality Law: Discussion of Possible Changes,102 but the proposals did not proceed beyond the consultation stage. Three years later, in 1980, the new Conservative Government published a White Paper, British Nationality Law: Outline of Proposed Legislation,103 which was similar to the previous Government’s proposals, and which formed the basis for the act which entered the statue book the following year. The 1981 British Nationality Act (BNA 1981) repealed BNA 1948 and established a new citizenship schema. It created three main categories of citizenship: British citizenship; British Dependent Territories Citizenship (BDTC); and British Overseas Citizenship (BOC). The concept of British as opposed to UK citizenship was wholly new, and was defined to the exclusion of the colonies and Commonwealth countries. The shift in nomenclature from CUKC to British citizenship reflected the fact that this legal category was now founded upon membership of the national community. The categories of BDTC and BOC were intended to mop up various former CUKCs who were without local citizenship in their country of abode but, crucially, they did not carry the right of entry to the United Kingdom. They were, in the opinion of one legal scholar, ‘cosmetic concepts designed to mollify local and international opinion’.104 BNA 1981 also replaced the tradition of jus soli (citizenship by territory) with jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent). Today, a child born in the United Kingdom no longer acquires British citizenship automatically. Citizenship is acquired automatically only if the child’s mother or father is a British citizen or settled in the United Kingdom (irrespective of where the child is born). Whilst this is not unusual in comparative European terms, in 1981 it marked a fundamental shift away from a system in which citizenship was rooted in territory, to a system based on lineage. In an echo of the patriality provisions in 1971, the parental clause of BNA 1981 facilitated the acquisition of British citizenship by the children of emigrants to the Old Commonwealth countries, most of whom were white, whilst closing off the connection between British citizenship and the Commonwealth as a whole. Thus BNA 1981 brought the second phase of immigration policy to an end. By redefining citizenship exclusively in terms of membership of the British national community, and by tying the right of entry and abode to that citizenship, it obliterated the paradoxical-sounding idea of ‘citizens who do not belong’ or ‘non-patrial’ citizens.

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5

Conclusion

This chapter has shown how immigration policy between the two British Nationality Acts was shaped by the concepts of citizenship and belonging. The imperial citizenship of 1948 was eroded by restrictive immigration legislation aimed at colonial immigrants, legislation which drew on notions of ‘belonging’ and ‘patriality’, then eventually abolished in 1981. The third phase in the genealogy set out earlier in this chapter, the period of renegotiation will be considered in Chapter 7. The next four chapters change the focus somewhat to explore the influence of socio-demographic factors on immigration policy-making; in other words, to consider immigration policy as an aspect of demographic governance. The first task is to substantiate further my claim that beneath the gloss of ‘citizens who do not belong’ lay an intent to restrict the entry of non-white colonial immigrants. The next chapter argues that immigration controls did indeed have a racial demographic purpose.

3 The Racial Demography of Immigration Controls

1

Introduction The development of [immigration] controls over this period was not concerned with a need to slow or prevent the growth of the population as a whole through immigration. It was concerned primarily with a perceived need to slow or prevent the further growth through immigration of particular ethnic minority communities within the population, and took place as it did precisely because many of those who had taken advantage of the opportunities available … had been black, from the New Commonwealth.1

Only recently have the intimate connections between immigration and demographic change returned to the public agenda. As European countries confront the implications of ageing populations, immigration is being considered as a potential solution to the demographic deficit. All too often, however, historical myopia characterizes these debates: the kinds of questions being asked, the problems being addressed, and the assumptions underlying popular discourse have many precedents in the recent past, which are often overlooked. This chapter explores the interconnections between demographic change and attitudes towards immigration, and demonstrates how racial ideas informed immigration policy-making in post-war Britain. It argues that post-war immigration controls were directed primarily at colonial immigrants; that the most salient fact about these immigrants in terms of attitudes and policy decisions was that they were non-white; that racial demographic concerns trumped other considerations such as the need for more population and labour; and that the construction of the United Kingdom’s immigration regime was simultaneously a 45

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quantitative ‘numbers game’ and a qualitative exercise informed by perceptions of race and belonging. The chapter begins with a consideration of inter-war Britain as an emigrant society, with a particular focus on the connections between emigration and Britain’s role as a colonial power. It then turns to address perceptions of immigration prior to 1948, and shows how during the population panic of the 1930s and 1940s immigration was canvassed as a possible solution to the problems of depopulation. Although immigration was ultimately rejected as a demographic fix, the reasons for this are highly instructive, not least because they prefigured actual arguments that were made against colonial immigration during the 1950s and beyond. In brief, immigration was rejected because the quantitative need for more population did not trump the qualitatively negative assessment of the potential impact of immigration on what the Royal Commission on Population described as Britain’s ‘fully established society’. British society, it was claimed, was particularly unsuited to immigration. I then turn to post-war debates about immigration in order to show how quantitative and qualitative factors overlapped and interacted. In accord with the epigraph at the start of this chapter, I argue that the perception of colonial immigrants as a threat to British society was not solely, nor even primarily, a quantitative matter; anti-immigrant sentiment was based on the potential size of immigrant groups combined with negative qualitative assessments of non-white immigrants. Indeed, I argue that the numbers game was racialized through and through. While several chapters of this book explore different dimensions of this, the latter sections of the present chapter focus on debates about ‘assimilation’ (a word that was used with little precision). Since it was widely assumed that colonial immigrants would have to be assimilated, policy-makers based estimates of acceptable levels of immigration on qualitative prejudgements about how many immigrants could be assimilated. This would be unexceptionable perhaps, were it not for the fact that assimilation was, despite its polysemous usage, a consistently racialized term. For this reason, then, the numbers game and assimilationist discourse cannot be understood separately. The view that Britain could not accommodate immigrants because it was full up – the ‘overcrowded island’ argument – is not a sufficient explanation for immigration controls. Although the population density of the British Isles was (and is) comparatively high by European standards, and notwithstanding the admitted importance of housing shortages in the post-war years, the problematization of colonial immigration was

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shaped by qualitative assessments of immigrants’ impact on the British population in terms of hazily defined notions such as its ‘way of life’ or ‘social consequences’. This amounts to the claim that racial demography was central to immigration policy-making. While only extremists made explicit their desire to ‘keep Britain white’, the wish to prevent, or at least limit, Britain from becoming a multiracial society was widespread and often deeply held. This was no less true in the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster than in British society at large, notwithstanding the comparative scarcity of cruder forms of racism in the former. At the heart of government, colonial immigration was, from the first, considered as a ‘problem’, and this problematization was bound up with racial ideas.

2 Teaching nations how to live: emigration, race and Britain’s world role from the 1920s to the 1940s In the inter-war period Britain was a net exporter of population. Emigration during the 1920s was given government recognition and support with the Free Passage Scheme of 1919 and the 1922 Empire Settlement Act, both of which provided assistance to those emigrating to the colonies. Although net migration actually went into reverse during the depression of the 1930s and a depopulation panic grew, this did not undermine the central importance accorded to colonial emigration.2 Government support for emigration during this period was based on a desire to export ‘British stock’ to colonial countries in order to secure British world influence. As we shall see, this had implications for the depopulation panic of the 1930s. From last quarter of the nineteenth century, Malthusian arguments about the dangers of over-population were increasingly challenged. The hegemony of Malthusian views had shown signs of weakening from the middle of the century, but with the depression of the 1870s the demography debate shifted markedly from a concern about unsustainable population growth to the declining birth-rate. The early years of the twentieth century saw a continuation of this trend, giving rise to what one scholar has described as an ‘alarmist literature on the imminent threat of demographic extinction’.3 This literature stressed the effect of the declining birth-rate on Britain’s international standing, particularly on the country’s strength vis-à-vis its colonies, whilst also emphasizing the domestic ramifications of a population that was believed to be in both quantitative and qualitative decline. There were

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abundant references to the fitness of the ‘national stock’ and the ‘English’ or ‘British race’, as well as to the standing of this ‘stock’ in relation to other powers. In part this reflected the broad appeal of eugenic ideas at the time. The eugenics movement was a respectable fledgling science and enjoyed considerable support from across the political spectrum.4 Eugenicists argued that it was the ‘socially irresponsible’ sections of society who were least affected by innovations in birth-control technology; therefore, as the overall population decreased the proportion of feckless groups was growing, and the British population faced enervation or even extinction. Even critics of the eugenics movement, writers such as Enid Charles, Clifford Sharp and Lancelot Hogben, agreed with the premise of depopulation. They too attacked the birth-control movement, arguing that the declining birth-rate threatened Britain’s international and domestic strength. Indeed, whether supportive or critical of eugenics, across the depopulation literature the two themes of international standing and the domestic population’s size and quality were inseparable, as the first theme was in large part a function of the second: the more pertinent was the decline in the British population, the greater the concern about diminishing world influence.5 Although fears of a demographic crisis did not reach a climax until the early 1930s when the total fertility rate reached an historically low level,6 by the early 1920s population trends were already a cause of concern. In 1923–4, two of Britain’s leading intellectuals, Sir William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas would so profoundly shape the post-war settlement,7 took part in a public exchange over the population issue. Beveridge and Keynes adopted diametrically opposed views: Beveridge, in line with the depopulation literature, thought that the declining birth-rate posed a threat to national culture and security, whereas Keynes, adopting a neo-Malthusian line, thought that there was a danger of the British population outstripping its means of subsistence. Keynes therefore advocated the increased provision of birthcontrol and insisted that if the population growth was not restricted large-scale unemployment would result.8 According to Beveridge, ‘Malthus’ Devil’ posed no threat to European countries such as Great Britain; on the contrary, ‘Europe and its races’ had been ravaged by the Great War and now required a concerted pronatalist effort: Vital statistics show that the European races, after a phase of headlong increase are returning to restriction. The revolutionary fall of

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fertility among these races within the past fifty years, while it has some mysterious features, is due in the main to practices as deliberate as infanticide. The questions now facing us are how far the fall will go; whether it will bring about a stationary white population after or long before the white man’s world is full; how the varying incidence of restriction among different social classes or creeds will affect the stock; how far the unequal adoption of birth control by different races will leave one race at the mercy of another’s growing numbers, or drive it to armaments and perpetual aggression in self-defence.9 Beveridge identified birth-control as the cause of both domestic and international decline: first, because it damaged the quality of the ‘national stock’ (as ‘responsible’ sections of society adopted birth control and therefore declined in relation to those sections that did not); and second, because it threatened the standing of European ‘races’ vis-à-vis non-European ‘races’. With the British Empire already facing the threat of nationalism in some of its colonies, notably India, Beveridge’s prognosis amounted to a challenge to the feasibility of British imperial rule. The issue of maintaining a healthy population was not only a matter of domestic concern, it was about securing the future balance of power between different ‘races’ and ensuring Britain’s place in the world. With this line of argument Beveridge pre-empted the debate that unfolded over the course of the next 20 years: birth-control resulted not only in a quantitative decline, but also in a depletion of the quality of the population, and subsequently threatened a diminution of the influence of ‘white races’. This view was expressed again and again as the 1930s wore on. To give just one example, in 1938, the international dangers brought about by population decline were put in unambiguous terms by yet another prominent intellectual, Richard Titmuss: can we maintain our present attitude to India while we decline in numbers and age … (and India’s population expands)? Can we in these circumstances retain our particular status in the world, our genius for colonization, our love of political freedom and our leadership of the British Commonwealth of nations … are we to bring to such a pathetic close, to such a mean inglorious end a history which with all its faults still shines with the lights of our gifts to mankind and still glows with the quiet patient courage of the common people?10

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The contribution of such luminaries as Beveridge, Keynes and Titmuss to the depopulation debate shows that near apocalyptic fears were far from the preserve of eccentrics or cranks. Nor was this a debate conducted exclusively by specialists. As early as 1923, the weekly magazine, the New Statesman, published an article on ‘Malthusian Moonshine’ by its editor, Clifford Sharp, in which he attacked the birth-control lobby as: one of the most dangerous movements that has ever threatened civilisation … [because it] … merely influences and always will mainly influence precisely those persons and classes which ought to be encouraged to bear children … the ‘intellectual’ class. … It is probably the greatest factor that at present exists towards the deterioration of the white races. … We are not enamoured of ‘eugenics’ especially as a science as it is preached by the Eugenics Education Society, but every intelligent being must admit that there is such a thing as ‘selection’ and that the average quality of a race may rise or fall.11 Thus was the inter-war population debate racialized. Its common assumptions were that British civilization and ‘our genius for colonization’ was the preserve of a subset of the ‘white races’; the quality of the ‘race’ was at risk; and, for some, the British population and its way of life was threatened by the increase in numbers of ‘different races’. For exponents of this latter view, if Britain was to maintain its civilizing mission it would have to shore up its declining population. During the 1930s, the population debate spread into popular publications and acquired an increasingly millennial tone. Pamphlets and books warning of national decline and race suicide began to appear. In The Twilight of Parenthood, Enid Charles, the wife of the biologist and critic of eugenics, Lancelot Hogben, argued that modern birth-control technologies ‘moulded the destiny of a civilisation which has lost the power to reproduce itself’. 12 Along with others in the depopulation school, Charles viewed birth-control not as a means of empowerment, a way of taking control of reproduction, but as precisely the opposite, a loss of power and control. Birthcontrol was a symptom of an ailing society no longer able to ensure its own survival. Charles denied the significance of Malthusian arguments for the foreseeable future and warned of the ‘real danger of under-population’. Indeed, she predicted ‘ultimate extinction if fertility remains at its present level’.13 In a similar vein, Lord Horder, an

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influential doctor and member of the Eugenics Society, wrote in his foreword to Titmuss’ 1938 book, Poverty and Population: A Factual Study of Contemporary Social Waste, that a ‘national calamity … faces us in regard to the population problem’.14 With the outbreak of war in 1939, the population problem took a back seat, but despite the exigencies of conflict, the debate did not entirely disappear. As late as 1945, with Europe in ruins, the innovative research organization, Mass Observation, ventured that ‘the birth-rate problem is the coming problem of Western Civilization’.15 Of course, there were opposing voices who challenged these gloomy predictions. D. V. Glass of the London School of Economics dismissed the fear that a declining birth-rate led necessarily to a weakened state, and he was one of the first to suggest immigration as a potential demographic tool. In an article in the Eugenics Review he attacked: those problems which arise largely from prejudice or unfounded fears … for example the anxiety that a fall in our numbers may result in a deterioration in our military position vis-à-vis the other powers. There is not a great deal of justification for this fear since, first … most of the countries in the western world are in a position very similar to our own; and secondly it ignores the possibility of attracting manpower from other countries by means of immigration facilities.16 As we shall see, Glass was rather naïve in his conviction that immigration could be deployed as a means to increase the population, for he failed to recognize that this possibility was forestalled, or at least limited, by the attitudes held by his contemporaries. To summarize the argument thus far: during the 1920s and 1930s, a public debate about the state of the British population developed. Notwithstanding the significant differences among contributors to this debate, there was widespread agreement on three matters: first, the birth-rate was declining; second, this was causing not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative decline in the British population; and third, these trends had profound domestic and international ramifications. The British population was believed to be ageing and at risk of losing its vitality and ‘genius’, and this, according to some, endangered Western civilization and Britain’s influence in the world. As the postwar reconstruction effort began, a demographic crisis was thought to be on the horizon.

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3 ‘A counsel of despair’: immigration and the population problem in the immediate post-war years In the event, the averred demographic crisis failed to materialize. Without any direction or planning, the post-war baby boom returned the birth-rate to above replacement level. However, since this natural trend was not apparent in the immediate post-war years, officials and experts continued to debate what measures should be taken to address the perceived problem. In this section I focus on three documents from the years immediately following the Second World War: the Report of the Royal Commission on Population, a populist book on population decline, and a report by an influential think-tank. These three documents were representative of official, popular, and expert opinion respectively. Despite differences in tone and emphasis, each of these documents considered the possibility of immigration as a demographic fix, and all three came to nearly identical conclusions about the unsuitability of immigration as a way of solving the population problem. The Royal Commission on Population was appointed in 1944 to address the declining birth-rate, although it did not produce its report until June 1949. The Commission’s consideration and ultimate rejection of immigration as a solution to the population problem provides an important insight into perceptions of race and Britishness in official discourse. Its terms of reference were to examine present population trends in Great Britain, to investigate their causes and probable consequences, and to consider if any measures ‘should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population’.17 The Report was more comprehensive than the monographs produced in the 1930s and lacked the tone of panic which characterized much of the debate during that period; nevertheless, there was a marked continuity in the association of the population issue with the fate of the British nation, its culture, and its security. For example, the opening section provided a survey of worldwide population trends and contrasted the growing populations of India and Pakistan with the declining birth-rates of Europe, the United States and the Old Commonwealth countries, such as Australia and Canada. As far as Britain was concerned, the Report pointed out that population growth had slackened in recent decades and attributed this to a fall in the size of the family caused by increased practice of birth-control. Indeed, birth-control was cited as ‘the main cause, and very probably the only cause’ of ‘family limitation’.18 Perhaps the most significant effect of the declining birth-rate was a change in the composition of the population

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towards an imbalanced age structure. The implications of an ageing population were described in quasi-eugenic terms: it … seems possible that a society in which the proportion of young people is diminishing will become dangerously unprogressive, falling behind other communities not only in technical efficiency and economic welfare but in intellectual and artistic achievements as well.19 The Commission then proceeded to consider two possible methods for increasing and rejuvenating the population: a pronatalist programme and an immigration scheme. The first was considered at great length and recommended, whereas the second was treated cursorily and rejected. The reasoning behind these contrasting judgements help explain why, notwithstanding the perceived population problem and post-war labour shortages, official responses to colonial immigration (which began as the Commission was concluding its investigations) were so hostile. Let us first briefly consider the positive recommendations. The Royal Commission recommended a thoroughgoing pronatalist programme to achieve replacement family size. This programme included a wide range of proposals: a raft of financial measures to reduce material inequalities between different sizes of family and to remove the ‘economic disadvantage’ faced by child-rearing couples, thereby promoting family welfare and encouraging larger family sizes; proposals to ease the burden of child-rearing, including increased provision of nurseries and other child-care facilities such as home help services, voluntary ‘sitters-in’ schemes, better ante-natal care, and more frequent midwife visits to new mothers; a series of environmental recommendations such as an increase in the construction of larger houses, improvement of laundry facilities, even the construction of more children’s playgrounds; and finally, several educational measures including instruction in ‘family life’ to schoolchildren, nutritional advice for mothers, and more statistical research on fertility data.20 Needless to say, this was a costly and complex set of proposals. In contrast to its recommendation of pronatalist policies, the Commission rejected immigration as a solution to the population problem. Its rationale was explicitly qualitative: when considering migration, ‘from the point of view of the trend of the population it is only the net movement which counts’ but ‘from other points of view … the size of the two flows, inward and outward, and the character of

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the people who compose them, may be of very great importance’.21 Both emigration and immigration required consideration not merely of numbers, but also of ‘character’. What were the relevant characteristics? Was race a consideranion? Regarding emigration, the commissioners supported the conclusion of the Committee on Empire Migration of the Economic Advisory Council that ‘the sense of unity which animates … the self-governing parts of the British Commonwealth is largely dependent on the preponderance of British stock in the population of the Dominions’. Therefore, the commissioners agreed, ‘we have no doubt that it is in the long-term interests of Great Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole to maintain the flow of emigrants from Great Britain to the other parts of the Commonwealth at as high a level as possible’.22 A striking conclusion from an inquiry expressly concerned with a declining population, and testimony to the importance that still attached to British influence through emigration to the colonies.23 The Commission thought it doubtful whether immigration could be used to shore up population decline in the long term. Although it might provide a solution to the problem of numbers, in a sub-section entitled ‘Problems of Immigration’ the report claimed that qualitative issues were perhaps insurmountable: we should have to face serious problems of assimilation beyond those of training and housing. Immigration on a large scale into a fully established society like ours could only be welcomed without reserve if the immigrants were of good human stock and were not prevented by their race or religion from intermarrying with the host population and becoming merged with it.24 Several of the themes in this passage became common currency in the debates about immigration during the 1950s and beyond, and it is therefore worth pausing to identify them. Firstly, the report ascribed a problematic status to immigration, unsupported by evidence or empirical data. This is reflected both in the title of the sub-section and also in the presumption that ‘serious problems of assimilation’ would follow from the development of an immigrant population. The reason given for this is that Britain is a ‘fully established society’. This rather opaque phrase is presumably intended to signify Britain as nation with a history, culture, and ‘way of life’ that is closed and consolidated, and which will not allow of additions. This raises the curious question of what societies might be described as not being ‘fully established’, for if

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British society is complete there must be less ‘established societies’ that are incomplete. Another difficulty is the need for immigrants of ‘good human stock’. This dovetails with the use of the phrase ‘British stock’ elsewhere in the report, creating an impression of indigenous quality in need of protection from exogenous vulgarization. Finally, the Report expresses the view that race can prevent intermarriage, and thereby opposes interracial sexual relations, at least implicitly. This prefaces the widespread fears about miscegenation that developed during the 1950s (see Chapter 5). Having set out the conditions that would have to be met in order for immigration to be welcomed, the Commission conceded that ‘these conditions were fulfilled by intermittent large scale immigration in the past, notably by the Flemish and French Protestant refugees who settled in Great Britain at different times’.25 It is highly significant that these historical examples of acceptable immigration involved white, European, and Protestant populations. The conclusion reached is unsurprising: immigration on a large scale would be both ‘impracticable’ and ‘undesirable’, and should be considered only as a last resort if attempts to increase family size proved unsuccessful. Indeed, in its overall summary on migration the Report describes small average family size as having a twofold negative consequence, namely, the reduction of emigration to colonies and increased pressure for immigration to address labour shortages: This prospect we regard as among the undesirable consequences of a sub-replacement family size because (a) the sources of supply of suitable immigrants are meagre and the capacity of a fully established society like ours to absorb immigrants of alien race and religion is limited and (b) a diminishing flow of British emigrants to other parts of the Commonwealth may have serious consequences for the economic and political future of Great Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole.26 Thus, as a result of its commitment to Britain’s imperial role and the need to maintain standards at home, the Royal Commission on Population supported the continued emigration of ‘British stock’ to the Empire/Commonwealth as a means of securing British influence whilst arguing against the encouragement of immigration to meet the population problem. Admittedly, the Report’s direct influence on policy was negligible, as by the time it was published its subject matter was no longer seen to be

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an acute problem. In some ways the Commission was already out of date when it was appointed. Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, the British birth-rate was increasing (although accurate information on demographic issues was limited due to the cancellation of the 1941 census).27 Then, from 1946 to 1948, births sharply increased as soldiers returned home. Even if, as Coleman and Salt point out, ‘the end of this demographic spike … brought a renewal of anxiety’ (and fertility levels were indeed low in the early 1950s), the threat of population decline did not figure again during the 1950s and 1960s. In common with most Western countries, Britain experienced a sustained increase in fertility over the next decade: the total fertility rate in England and Wales rose from a nadir of 2.14 in 1951 to a zenith of 2.94 in 1964.28 The spontaneous baby boom rendered the Commission’s pronatalist programme superfluous, and the threat of depopulation was pushed into the background, reinforced by the experiences of housing shortages and overcrowding in urban areas. For these reasons the Royal Commission did not result in an new population policy, and its importance, therefore, is as an indicator of official perceptions. In order to gauge wider attitudes towards immigration during the immediate post-war years we should turn to some unofficial publications. Whilst the Royal Commission offered a relatively sober consideration of the supposed population problem, other contributors to the debate continued to make predictions of imminent disaster. The diction of apocalypse reached a peak with the publication of Eva Hubback’s The Population of Britain in 1947. Hubback, an economist by training, continued to popularize eugenic ideas in the post-Nazi era. Published as a paperback by Pelican, her 1947 book was intended as a popular background to the impending Royal Commission report, although its claims were far more alarmist than the Commission’s would prove to be. According to Hubback, after ‘the shattering impact of war’ there was no question ‘of such fundamental importance as that of the future of our people, both as regards their numbers and their quality’.29 Quoting a Fabian Society publication on the population problem, Hubback insisted that ‘our ability to deal with it will reveal the ultimate survival value of our civilisation’. Throughout, Hubback’s text is suffused with assertions of British greatness and predictions that population decline poses a threat to the existence of the British way of life and its underpinning ideals: Should the Mother Country, therefore, fade out of existence or become too greatly outnumbered by peoples with different charac-

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teristics, or should Britons become so few in number that we no longer had the influence and prestige of a great Power, our country could no longer be in the position that she is in today – as the centre of a great Commonwealth – to spread the ideals in which we believe, and the world would be very much the poorer.30 Among the consequences of a declining population, Hubback included the threat of being overrun by persons with different values and ideals: ‘Pressures from the Near and Far East … may well mean that an emptying Britain would be largely occupied by people from nations with very different traditions and ideas from our own’.31 Notwithstanding these comments, Hubback did at least affect to consider immigration as a solution to population decline, but concluded that if pursued, ‘we should inevitably find ourselves involved in many difficult problems arising from efforts to assimilate a large number of people with different attitudes towards life from our own’.32 Summarizing her own argument, Hubback claimed that ‘immigration on a vast scale is a counsel of despair, as it is a sign that we have failed to maintain the vitality and spirit to keep our own community alive’.33 Hubback’s approach is usefully compared with that of the thinktank, Population and Economic Planning (PEP), which published a report on Population Policy in Great Britain in April 1948. Since its foundation in 1931, PEP had become extremely influential and was known as an organization that produced middle-ground proposals for reform in the areas of economic and social policy.34 Population Policy in Great Britain argued that although the ‘extreme and alarmist views’ of the inter-war period had now been superseded, the basic problem of population remained, and the lack of a coherent policy presented a serious obstacle to its resolution. Holding that ‘population policy is concerned not only with numbers but also with quality’, the report argued for more thorough planning which would help achieve the goal of a populous, prosperous, and healthy Britain. PEP set out ‘to assist the development of policies aimed at maintaining the numbers of the population, improving its quality and making the best use of its energy and intelligence’.35 The PEP report began in a similar vein to the yet to be published Royal Commission Report by surveying world population trends. Three phases of population development were identified: a phase in which neither death-rate nor birth-rate are subject to human control; a phase in which the number of premature deaths is decreased by improvements in living standards, hygiene and medical knowledge, and thus

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the overall population increases; and a final phase in which the birthrate is arrested by means of human control (the use of contraception) and the overall population stagnates or decreases. ‘White peoples’ were the first to enter phase two (around the beginning of the seventeenth century) and also phase three (in the late nineteenth century). By contrast, the majority of the world’s ‘non-white peoples’ remained in phase one, although some countries were beginning to enter phase two. The conclusion PEP drew from this schema of population development is strongly paternalistic, an attitude redolent of imperial propaganda: In these as in other matters the white peoples have a decisive contribution to make. They are responsible for the interacting development of knowledge and social organization which in six generations has revolutionized economic relations, productive techniques, and attitudes to life – and, incidentally, demographic trends as well. They are still the leaders of the world and the masters of technique. While they tackle their own population problems – and this is a precondition of their contribution to the world problem – they must not forget that the responsibility is upon them to take the initiative in seeking international solutions for the different and more pressing problems of the economically backward peoples. For ultimately these problems are as indivisible for the entire human race as are the problems of war and peace.36 The report went on to recommend a population policy to arrest the drift of the British population towards an imbalanced age structure: ‘a positive policy is necessary to maintain the quality of the population’. PEP proposed a raft of financial measures, including an increase in family allowances and an increased maternity grant for the first baby, accompanied by some strongly eugenicist proposals such as tax rebates for each child born to families in middle and higher income groups, and the targeting of contraceptive advice at ‘problem families’.37 By these means, fertility and ‘quality’ would be improved. Of the other two variables affecting a population in the third developmental phase – emigration and immigration – the PEP report expressed commonplace opinions. A moderate level of emigration to the Empire/Commonwealth was encouraged insofar as it was necessary to keep the ‘British character’ of those overseas territories, despite an acknowledgement that emigration entailed ‘losses’ for the ‘Motherland’. PEP quoted the 1938 opinion of the Overseas Settlement

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Board that ‘it is only from the point of view of strengthening the Empire as a whole that the encouragement of migration from the United Kingdom can be justified’.38 Immigration, on the other hand, was considered to be a useful short-term tool of population management, but could not be relied upon in the long term. PEP identified three ‘obvious sources of recruitment’ created by the war: the Polish Resettlement Corps, Displaced Persons, and German prisoners.39 The possibility of harnessing the considerable labour pools of the Empire/ Commonwealth was given scant attention: immigration from the ‘“white nations” of the Commonwealth’ was out of the question, whilst non-white immigration was dismissed with the comment that, ‘the absorption of large numbers of non-white immigrants would be extremely difficult’.40 Thus PEP deemed the recruitment of Germans, against whom Britain had just fought a long, bloody and destructive war, less problematic than recruiting black and Asian British subjects – testimony to how problematic the assimilation of non-white CUKCs into Britain’s ‘fully established society’ was perceived to be. This brief review of attitudes towards immigration within the context of the population debate of the later 1940s illustrates why the use of colonial immigration as a means of ameliorating the perceived problems was widely rejected. These rejections were variously configured, but they all assumed that British society could not accommodate non-white colonial citizens without significant problems of ‘assimilation’. At best, immigration was a last resort solution, a ‘counsel of despair’ which signified an emasculated country unable to reproduce itself. It was into this context, in which sponsored immigration had been rejected as a tool of demographic governance, that colonial immigrants began to arrive from 1948 onwards.

4 Responses to colonial immigration: race, assimilation and the numbers game The racial demographic logic that underpinned successive Governments’ responses to colonial immigration was organised around two key issues: the numbers game and assimilation. These two issues were fused together, so that the one cannot be understood without the other. During the 1950s and 1960s, Britain was often described as an ‘overcrowded’ or ‘densely populated island’,41 and by international standards the country did have a high population density. However, the chief concern motivating immigration controls was not the size of the British population per se but the size of non-white groups in

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Britain. Among policy-makers it was widely assumed that if large enough, non-white immigrant groups would no longer be assimilable into British society, but would instead threaten to change the character of society. In other words, if the numbers were too high, Britain, rather than the immigrants themselves, would be forced to bear the burden of adaptation. The question was not how many immigrants could Britain accommodate, but rather how many non-white immigrants could Britain assimilate? The dominant approach among the policy-making elite was assimilative not accommodative.42 Race and the numbers game prior to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 In January 1946, the Labour Government estimated that Britain faced a labour shortage of between 600,000 and 1.3 million workers.43 The following year, the Economic Survey for 1947 identified the need for an increase in the labour supply and in labour productivity as crucial to ensuring the success of the reconstruction programme.44 In short, the British economy needed more people. The Government’s response was to implement several recruitment schemes of European labour. By this means, some 345,000 European aliens were recruited for work in Britain at an estimated cost of £18.1 million.45 In February 1946 the government established a Foreign Labour Committee to ‘examine, in the light of the existing manpower shortages, the possibility of making increased use of foreign labour, particularly in essential industries which are now finding special difficulty in recruiting labour’.46 The schemes for recruitment of European labour included the Polish Resettlement Corps, through which over 120,000 former members of the Polish Armed Forces were recruited to live and work in Britain;47 ‘Westward Ho!’, a large scheme which brought over 78,500 workers and dependants from central and eastern Europe; ‘Balt Cygnet’, a scheme for female workers from the Baltic states recruited for domestic work in hospitals and sanitoriums; extensive recruitment of Displaced Persons from camps run by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; and the ‘Blue Danube’, ‘North Sea’ and ‘Official Italian’ schemes, to recruit female workers for nursing, industry and domestic service from Austria, Germany and Italy respectively. The Home Office did express some disquiet at this large-scale importation of European Volunteer Workers (EVWs), but given the exigencies of the situation and the enthusiasm of the Ministry of Labour this did not amount to much. The Home Office agreed to comply with the schemes once a conces-

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sion allowing the deportation of recruited workers for up to twelve months after arrival had been secured. By July 1948, 163,000 officially recruited aliens and 50,000 aliens on individual work permits were employed in Britain.48 Thus, largely through formal schemes, sizeable numbers of Europeans arrived to work and live in Britain. In less than three years, as many European migrant workers arrived in Britain as would arrive from the colonies and New Commonwealth over the course of a decade. Admittedly, the reconstruction years were unusual times and Britain faced an immediate need, nevertheless, it is striking just how uncontroversial European migrant workers were compared to colonial immigrants.49 One reason European labour was considered favourably by the British Government was because, as aliens, EVWs could be closely managed and regulated: recruits could only undertake employment selected by the Ministry of Labour and they could be deported if they were found to be unsuitable or ‘undesirable’.50 The contrast with the Government’s consideration of colonial labour recruitment could not be more stark. The Government did establish a working party on colonial labour, but it concluded that no large-scale recruitment of male colonial workers should be attempted due to potential problems of discrimination and assimilation.51 This was in tune with the widespread scepticism in Whitehall, where the only department that consistently argued for the use of colonial labour was the Colonial Office. In discussions about colonial immigration it was often pointed out that unlike EVWs, who could be controlled as aliens and were therefore temporary, and Irish workers, many of whom were seasonal migrants, colonial immigrants were a potentially permanent feature of British society. Since any colonial CUKCs recruited could not be removed from the country against their wishes, it was feared that harnessing this source in order to meet a temporary requirement would have irreversible long-term consequences. Articulations of this concern typically referred to race, so much so that the fear of permanency became a racialized notion. Sir Harold Wiles, Deputy Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Labour, argued against the Colonial Office’s recommendation to harness the ‘surplus manpower of certain Colonies’ on the following grounds: I do not think any scheme for the importation of coloured Colonials for permanent settlement here should be embarked upon without full understanding that this means a coloured element will be brought in for permanent absorption into our own population.52

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This process of ‘absorption’ was seen to be deeply problematic. For example, in 1952, four years after West Indian immigrants had started to arrive on British shores, a senior police officer was requested by the Home Office to provide information on the ‘public morals’ of the newcomers. His response drew a clear distinction between European and colonial labour: unlike foreign white emigrants who come to this Country and are gradually absorbed into the life of the Nation, there seems no prospect of the coloured races being absorbed into our way of living, so that it would seem essential that some positive steps should be taken to control this problem before it assumes serious proportions.53 Such recruitment schemes as did exist for colonial CUKCs were mostly established by employers. The London Transport executive agreed a scheme with the Barbadian Immigrants’ Liaison Service to loan Barbadians their fare to Britain; the British Hotels and Restaurants Association also recruited workers from Barbados; and some employers in industry and manufacturing advertised in the West Indies, India, and Pakistan.54 The one scheme which did directly emanate from central government was a continuation of wartime recruitment of Caribbean workers, mostly female, as nurses and hospital domestic workers. Contrary to popular perception, then, the number of colonial immigrants who arrived in Britain on recruitment programmes comprised a small fraction of the total; colonial immigration was overwhelmingly a spontaneous and voluntary movement. The enduring belief that this immigration was somehow the result of widespread government encouragement or sponsorship is a myth.55 As colonial immigration developed spontaneously, disquiet among the political elite quickly developed. Addressing the House of Commons on the Jamaican immigrants aboard the Empire Windrush, George Isaacs, the Minister of Labour, sought to distance himself from their imminent arrival, stating: ‘I hope no encouragement is given to others to follow their example.’56 In the brief answer session that day the movement was variously described as an ‘extraordinary action’ and a ‘great disappointment’.57 A few days later, the Colonial Secretary anxiously reassured the Cabinet that ‘it was certainly not organised or encouraged by the Colonial Office or the Jamaica Government. On the contrary, every possible step has been taken … to discourage these influxes.’ Furthermore, ‘unless there is to be a public scandal and the

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possibilities of disorder, some arrangements must be made to deal with the situation’.58 Clearly, this ‘influx’ was both unforeseen and unwanted. Two weeks later, the day after the Windrush docked at Tilbury, a group of Labour MPs wrote to the Prime Minister expressing their serious misgivings about the arrival and, crucially, its potential significance for future developments. The MPs feared that ‘this country may become an open reception centre for immigrants not selected in respect to health, education, training, character, customs and above all, regardless of whether assimilation is possible or not’. In terms strikingly similar to the forthcoming Royal Commission Report, they argued that: The British people fortunately enjoy a profound unity without uniformity in their way of life, and are blest by the absence of a colour racial problem. An influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our public and social life and to cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned.59 They recommended control of immigration, through restrictive legislation if necessary, and pointed out that such a measure would be ‘almost universally approved by our people’. Attlee responded with what, in hindsight, can only be seen as a wholly misguided nonchalance: ‘I think it would be a great mistake to take the emigration of this Jamaican party to the United Kingdom too seriously’.60 Referring to the tradition of free admission to the Mother Country for British subjects, Attlee argued that the resentment which would be created in the colonies by any attempt to restrict such access could only be justified by ‘really compelling evidence’ of ‘undesirables’ entering the country. This was not the case at present. Over the next few years, the early negative responses towards immigration hardened into a set of unquestioned assumptions, which delineated and structured the immigration debate. At every stage the question was not so much whether, but how and when, colonial immigration should be controlled. By the time the Conservatives returned to power in 1952, the contours of debate were well-established. In a 1954 Cabinet discussion, Churchill summed up the whennot-if approach to immigration controls: ‘their [immigrants] presence here would sooner or later come to be resented by large sections of the British people. It might well be true, however, that the problem had not yet assumed sufficient proportions to enable the Government to

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take adequate counter-measures’.61 At the meeting, a memorandum on the ‘Employment of coloured people’ by the Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, was considered. Maxwell-Fyfe had undertaken to ‘examine the possibilities of preventing any further increase in the number of coloured people seeking employment in this country’ as requested by the Cabinet in December 1952. To this end, he established an interdepartmental working party. Its summary of possible strategies, presented to the Cabinet, is startling: It would obviously be impossible to discriminate openly against coloured people as such in administration or legislation in the field of employment. After a thorough examination of the possibilities the Committee have come to the conclusion that it is not practicable to take steps to prevent coloured people obtaining employment once they are in this country. Any action to that end would have to be directed to preventing them or discouraging them from entering the United Kingdom in search of employment. There is, of course, no power or law to prevent any British subject entering and remaining in the United Kingdom.62 Thus the working party had considered endorsing racist discrimination, dismissing it not on moral but on ‘practicable’ grounds. Just over a year later, in June 1955, the Cabinet requested the new Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd-George, to investigate further. The title of the new committee that was established is revealing in itself: Committee on the Social and Economic Problems Arising from the Growing Influx into the United Kingdom of Coloured Workers from other Commonwealth Countries. Not only was ‘colour’ an explicit factor, but written into the very title of the Committee was an assumption of problematic status, both social and economic. The importance of ‘colour’ was clear in its first report, presented to Cabinet in August. First, the Committee shrugged off the fact that it was unable to present accurate figures for immigration from the Old Dominions by stating that ‘such immigration whatever its extent has never given rise to difficulties’.63 It then argued that unlike most independent Commonwealth countries, the United Kingdom had not hitherto needed to control the entry of British subjects. This reflected: the special position in the Commonwealth which she occupies but it must be remembered that until lately the pattern of migration within the Commonwealth has not been such as to raise for serious

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consideration the question of restricting the immigration of British subjects to the United Kingdom.64 The Committee pointed out that the 1951 census recorded some 347,000 persons resident in Great Britain who were born in other Commonwealth territories, and although ‘the Census figures do not take account of race or colour … it may be assumed that a large number … were of United Kingdom descent’. The ‘recent influx of coloured persons … is clearly a new development’ and was obviously the rationale behind the Committee’s formation. The report then gave a broadly positive assessment of the present situation regarding colonial immigrants, with the critical exception of housing, where ‘scandalous overcrowding’ had developed in certain areas. Although this was a valid concern, supported by contemporaneous academic studies,65 the problem was partially explained in the report by the different ‘standards’ of ‘coloured people’: to some degree this problem arises in respect of all immigrants from overseas, e.g. citizens of the Irish Republic, but it is much aggravated in the case of coloured people who may at home have been accustomed to standards of accommodation which would not be considered adequate in this country. In an early instance of the limitation-integration equation, the Committee also queried ‘whether race relations would not deteriorate if there were a significant increase in the coloured population’. As an advisory document, the report did not conclude one way or the other on whether legislation should be introduced. Nevertheless, it was clear which way the Committee leant: ‘the theoretical case for taking such powers to protect the inhabitants of this densely populated island is obvious’.66 In November 1955, the Government did in fact come close to introducing immigration legislation. A draft bill was put before the Cabinet by Lloyd-George, but after discussion it was agreed that the problem did not yet warrant action. It was clear, however, that if the number of immigrants increased then controls would be imposed. The minutes reveal how long-term racial demographic implications informed the Government’s deliberations: The problem of Colonial immigration had not yet aroused general public anxiety, although there was some concern, mainly due to

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housing difficulties, in a few localities where most of the recent immigrants were concentrated. On the other hand, if immigration from the Colonies and, for that matter, from India and Pakistan, were allowed to continue unchecked, there was a real danger that over the years there would be a significant change in the racial character of the English people.67 This concern was repeated, with an internationalist twist, in the conclusion of a Colonial Office report, which claimed that ‘a large coloured community as a noticeable feature of our social life would weaken … the concept of England or Britain to which people of British stock throughout the Commonwealth are attached’.68 Against a racial demographic background, the Cabinet also considered the potential tension between short-term economic and long-term ‘social’ interests. The Cabinet thought that on ‘economic grounds immigration, including Colonial immigration, was a welcome means of augmenting our labour resources’. Hence, ‘consideration might be given to the possibility of admitting Colonial immigrants for temporary employment for a period not exceeding five years. This might meet the present need for labour with less prejudice to long-term social conditions’.69 The Prime Minister concluded the discussion by stating that ‘further thought must be given to this problem’. Sir Norman Brook, the Cabinet Secretary, was in no doubt as to the intended targets of the draft bill. In a letter to the Prime Minister on the ‘real objects’ of legislation he wrote that ‘although the Bill itself is non-discriminatory, it would be clear against whom the Bill was directed and the Government would not be able to avoid disclosing its real objects’.70 Following the decision not to introduce legislation at this time, the Cabinet intensified its data collection and research, establishing a Ministerial Committee to report on the trends in immigration and advise on appropriate action. One upshot of this was that from 1955 onwards a count of colonial immigrants was made and the net flow recorded (Table 3.1). These investigations revealed that from 1956 to 1959 the net intake of immigrants was actually declining, so that from a purely numerical standpoint the ‘problem’ of immigration could be said to have been receding in the second half of the 1950s. From numbers alone, then, the rationale for control was weak. Moreover, given that the large increase from 1960 to 1962 was partially attributable to a ‘beat the ban’ rush, as rumours and speculation about impending restrictions circulated, it is not at all clear that legislation in 1962 did not have the

The Racial Demography of Immigration Controls 67 Table 3.1

Net intake of New Commonwealth citizens, 1955–62

Year 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 (to 30 June)

Net intake 42,700 46,850 42,400 29,850 21,600 57,700 136,400 94,900

Source: Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965).

paradoxical effect of increasing immigration, at least in the short term (and after 1962, the number of voucher-holders plus dependants entering annually generally exceeded the levels of intake for the 1950s). The newly formed Ministerial Committee on Colonial Immigrants informed the Cabinet in June 1956 that before the war there had been about 7,000 ‘coloured people’ resident in Britain. By 1953 it had risen to more than 40,000 and since then the annual inflow had accelerated with the total non-white population in 1956 estimated at around 100,000. According to the Committee, the prognosis was unpromising: the Caribbean had a surplus population, thus ‘there is little prospect of the rate of immigration from the West Indies spontaneously decreasing … indeed … the rate of immigration may well continue to rise’. Current immigrants formed an ‘advance guard’ who would ‘help to bring over their friends and relatives’.71 Although any move to legislate would be unpopular in the Commonwealth at large, would present ‘embarrassing problems’ as to the apportionment of the quota between different countries, and would be subject to critical scrutiny at home, the report nevertheless argued that controls should be considered. Removing any ambiguity as to the intended target of controls, the Committee argued that while ‘any legislation would have to apply, on the face of it, to the Commonwealth as a whole’ and ‘would, in form, be non-discriminatory, it would nevertheless be clear against whom [it] was really directed’.72 The Committee concluded that although ‘coloured immigration has become an ominous problem’, the ‘balance of advantage’ currently lay against control. They recommended that the situation be kept under regular review.73 During the final third of the 1950s there was something of a lull in the immigration debate. Whereas the Cabinet had discussed colonial

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immigration on no fewer than eighteen occasions during the years 1954–6, it was discussed on only six occasions during 1957–9.74 Perhaps this reflected the declining number of entrants during the late 1950s. Notwithstanding the riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill during the summer of 1958, and the press coverage these received, it appears that the issue of immigration receded from the official mind. It would be wrong, however, to think that this indicated a growing acceptance of immigrants. As the Economist reported, just three months after the riots, ‘far from thinking that the British people will get used to colour, as they are reconciled to Poles, Irish, or Middle Europeans, [there is a] school of opinion in Whitehall [which] feels that when the tide of colour rises to a certain, as yet unspecified, point, the mass of British voters will demand that some check be imposed’.75 Throughout these years, the introduction of legislation was a matter of when, not if. The decisive shift in government opinion came between February and May 1961. On 16 February, the Lord Chancellor, who chaired the Commonwealth Migrants Committee (CMC), reported that in relation to employment and law and order ‘the extent of coloured immigration gave no cause for serious disquiet at present’ but ‘housing problems were becoming increasingly acute and there was also some anxiety on grounds of public health’. The Cabinet resolved to consider the situation, but for the time being agreed to adopt a wait-and-see approach; the Government spokesman who would address a motion on immigration in the Commons the following day was instructed to ‘temporize’.76 Three months later, the tone had shifted and the Government decided to present legislation to Parliament. Following a ‘startling increase in the number of coloured immigrants … the [Commonwealth Migrants] Committee were now agreed that this movement was reaching a stage at which the Government would be obliged to introduce legislation to enable them to control it’.77 It was predicted that a total of 200,000 colonial immigrants would arrive by the end of 1961 and, if present trends continued, 0.5 million by the end of the year and 2 million within the next 15 years. In his memorandum to the Cabinet, the Lord Chancellor argued that housing, plus Parliamentary and public concern about ‘the social consequences’ of ongoing immigration provided sufficient reasons for control. Additionally, ‘the quality of the immigrants appears to be deteriorating’.78 The CMC was unanimous in its verdict. Despite his misgivings over certain of the Lord Chancellor’s proposals, even the Commonwealth Secretary, Duncan Sandys, now accepted the need for some form of legislation. The Committee suggested three possible methods of control, based on

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housing, health, and employment. The Cabinet decided to reject controls ‘related to the health of the individual or the availability of housing accommodation for him’ and base legislation on some form of employment scheme. In discussion it was noted that whatever scheme was adopted and whatever rationale was given ‘it must be accepted that the proposed control … involved an element of discrimination against coloured people’. The question was whether or not ‘to confront this issue openly’.79 The Committee was instructed to make further investigations on practicability and report back in the autumn. In its deliberations during the course of that summer, the CMC made clear that the imposition of immigration controls was a decision based on ‘the wider problem of social tension, and that in turn was essentially a problem of colour’.80 By its own admission, then, race informed its recommendation for legislation. The CMC contended that the growing numbers of non-white immigrants threatened to render assimilation untenable: the present level [of colonial immigration] was too high for successful assimilation. In consequence a number of social problems had accumulated to produce a difficult situation. The strain on housing authorities and the health services had continued, and there was a general feeling in the country that too many coloured persons were settling here.81 When the Cabinet considered immigration again in October, in addition to the recommendations of the CMC it also had before it a memorandum by the Home Secretary, Rab Butler, to which was attached a draft bill. According to Butler, the numbers of immigrants had ‘already given rise to serious problems’ particularly regarding housing, and ‘it was evident that the country could not assimilate coloured immigrants on the present scale’. The Cabinet as a whole shared these views and was quite explicit in its racial demographic reasoning: ‘the Bill itself applied to all Commonwealth citizens, irrespective of colour; but it would be evident in its operation that the control was being applied in practice only to coloured people’.82 It was agreed that legislation should be introduced in the forthcoming session of Parliament. In light of these deliberations, it is difficult to agree with Randall Hansen’s conclusion that ‘the legion attacks on the Commonwealth Immigrants Act are puzzling’.83 Hansen correctly points out that the legislation applied to both New and Old Commonwealth citizens. However, if we attend only to the letter of the law, and not to the intentions of the

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Cabinet as revealed in the minutes and memoranda discussed above, we miss a significant part of the picture, not least that CIA 1962 was motivated by a desire to reduce the number of non-white people entering Britain and that, in practice, it affected New Commonwealth citizens more than Old Commonwealth citizens. Given that there was clearly a racial demographic logic to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act (CIA 1962), is it so surprising that it has been criticized as racist? Hansen also claims that ‘the economic gains of further migration, during a period in which labour shortages were sectoral and limited to skilled professions, were dubious’.84 I deal with economic factors in Chapter 4, suffice it to say here that the express view of the CMC and the Cabinet itself was that the rationale for legislation was not ‘economic’ but ‘social’.85 We have already seen how the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill was received in Parliament, with Labour attacking the Government, and the de facto exemption of Irish citizens at the centre of allegations about the Bill’s racist intent (see Chapter 2). On 16 November 1961, Rab Butler moved the Second Reading of the Bill, and justified it partly by evoking the demographic threat of unmanageable immigration: ‘a sizeable part of the entire population of the earth is at present legally entitled to come and stay in this already densely populated country.’ In approaching the subject of immigration, he argued, ‘we start from the fact that we are a thickly populated country and certain to become more so. … Immigration is becoming an increasingly important factor in this problem’.86 Critics were not so easily persuaded. On the day after the Second Reading, the Prime Minister of the Federation of the West Indies, Sir Grantley Adams, sent a telegram to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, in which he condemned the Bill as racially motivated: ‘West Indians are firmly convinced that by this action Britain has begun to take steps which are no different in kind to the basis on which the system of apartheid in South Africa is based.’ In a blistering attack on the Bill, Adams argued that: it is inconceivable that West Indians who form less than one half of the population of Great Britain can constitute any threat to Britain’s economy or health. There has been no evidence to indicate that West Indians are less law-abiding or moral than the people of Britain whose beliefs in law, freedom and justice they share. … It will in future be difficult for any person from the Commonwealth to accept unreflectingly [sic] the oft-repeated assertion of multi-racial partnership.87

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Macmillan’s reply was as disingenuous as it was detached: ‘the Bill is intended as a means of regulating the total volume of immigration from all parts of the Commonwealth to a rate at which they can be assimilated’.88 Given that the concept of assimilation was never applied to Old Commonwealth citizens, indeed, assimilation was effectively a codeword for the integration of non-white people into British society,89 Macmillan’s statement belied his claim that the Bill was aimed at all parts of the Commonwealth ‘without discrimination of any kind’. True, there was nothing in the Bill itself which referred to race, but in its motivations and operation it was black and Asian immigrants who were being targeted. As we saw in Chapter 2, the Bill adopted a tripartite labour voucher scheme, which avoided the problem of outright racial discrimination but had, and was intended to have, the effect of restricting non-white immigration. Again, it was the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, who made this clear in a plain-speaking memorandum to the Prime Minister, in which he stated that ‘the control would in form apply to all Commonwealth countries … although its restrictive effect would be limited almost exclusively to coloured immigrants’.90 Numbers and assimilation in the 1960s The passage of CIA 1962 had a significant effect on the size and composition of immigrant groups. As can be seen in Table 3.2, the majority of New Commonwealth citizens admitted into the United Kingdom for permanent settlement between 1962 and 1965 (rows c and d) were Table 3.2 Commonwealth citizens from Commonwealth countries and dependent territories, excluding Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 1963–5 1963 Numbers admitted, by categories: (a) visitors 57,365 (b) students 16,730 (c) voucher-holders 28,678 (d) others admitted for settlement 27,393 (mainly dependants) (e) remainder (mainly ‘returning 48,364 residents’) 1. Total number admitted 178,170 2. Total number embarked 121,121 3. Net balance 57,049

1964

1965 (Jan.–June)

62,825 18,044 13,888 38,952

25,733 4,581 6,771 19,849

60,153

27,989

193,862 131,745 62,117

84,923 51,540 33,383

Source: Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965).

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dependants – mostly wives and children joining the head of the family. This important change in the composition of immigrants is discussed more fully in Chapter 5. Initially, it had been anticipated that most labour vouchers issued would be from Category C, but by September 1964 the two ‘priority classes’, Categories A and B, took up the whole issue of 400 vouchers a week, leaving none for applicants in the third category. By 1965, a waiting list of over 300,000 Category C applicants had developed. The new Labour Government’s White Paper announced the discontinuation of Category C and a reduction of the total number of vouchers from 20,800 to 8,500 per year in order to protect ‘our small and overcrowded country’.91 Numbers alone do not tell the whole story however. Research conducted by the Ministry of Labour into the ‘social and economic effects of coloured immigration’ during this period show how the subject continued to be measured and assessed in racialized terms: Nearly two-thirds of the total increase in the overseas-born population between 1951 and 1961 was accounted for by the nonEuropean elements. Of an intercensal increase of 455,000, 298,000 were of non-European stock and their numbers more than doubled in the decade. In the same period the population of European stock increased by barely one-fifth. … Consequently problems of assimilation and acceptance by the home-population were made more difficult.92 Similar distinctions were made when the General Register Office presented the data from the 1966 sample census: the ‘very meaningful dichotomy’ between Old and New Commonwealth migrants in terms of ‘the difference of the two groups in respect of social and economic characteristics’ provided the rationale for their separate enumeration.93 Whilst this distinction was perhaps justifiable in terms of the differences in skills and (for some New Commonwealth immigrants) language, the dichotomy was, above all, based on a racial demographic logic. Fervent opponents of immigration, for whom the restrictions of CIA 1962 were wholly inadequate, often drew connections between racial demography, the numbers game (Britain as an ‘overcrowded island’) and the impossibility of assimilation (Britain as a ‘fully-established society’). For the restrictionist MP Norman Pannell (Con.), the ‘chief difficulty arises from the great influx of unskilled coloured workers of low social standards, of entirely different habits and background and

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possessing an imperfect knowledge of English’.94 He argued that colonial immigrants were different from Irish and Jewish immigrants, who, ‘whatever their peculiarities, habits or customs when they first arrive … have been able to adapt themselves to the British social pattern and gain full acceptance in the community because, to put it baldly, their skins are white’. In the eighteenth century, assimilation had been possible with ‘the few thousand freed negroes resident here … but to assume that the process can be extended to hundreds of thousands in the short term is wishful thinking of the most naïve description’.95 In a similar vein, the Birmingham Immigration Control Group’s pamphlet, ‘Immigration: The Incredible Folly’, opened with the line ‘more population is the last thing this over-crowded island needs’, and then went on to describe colonial immigrants as ‘of alien race and culture’; their presence in the country meant native Britons were ‘suffering the social havoc of a multiracial society’. ‘Already the day is gone’, the pamphlet claimed, ‘when a Briton returned from a foreign land can walk in our streets feeling that he is again among his “ain folk”; within the bosom of his own family’.96 In the aftermath of the 1964 Smethwick election campaign (see Chapter 2), both of the main political parties sought a consensus to prevent immigration from becoming a partisan issue.97 As part of this effort, the Government was reluctant to release information which could fuel controversy, especially information about numbers. An intervention by Sir Cyril Osborne (Con.) – who, along with Pannell, was one of the leading restrictionist MPs – sparked an inter-departmental row over the release of statistical predictions on immigration. In October 1967, Osborne sent an inflammatory letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, which was published under the heading ‘Threat To Survival: Increasing Flood of New Immigrants’, shortly before the Conservative Party conference. The letter urged delegates to insist on a debate about immigration as ‘it is the most deadly problem facing our nation. Unless it is solved quickly it could destroy our race.’ He predicted that there could be as many as 3.5 million ‘coloured immigrants’ in Britain by 1985 and warned against creating a ‘vastly increased mixed population’.98 Osborne had procured his figure of 3.5 million from the Minister of Health, Julian Snow, in a reply to a written question in June 1967. Following this, Snow received a letter from David Ennals, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Home Office, questioning the prediction that had been issued, when the Home Office’s estimate for 1985 was significantly lower, and warning about the dangers of a lack of coordination between the two departments. The Home Office

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Minister expressed annoyance that Snow had divulged information to Osborne. He claimed that the figure of 3.5 million was excessive and pointed out that it had already formed the basis of ‘propaganda’ from Duncan Sandys and Enoch Powell. Snow replied, explaining and defending the assumptions on which the prediction was based, but then, after Osborne’s letter had appeared, Ennals wrote another, more critical response to Snow.99 He challenged Snow’s assumptions – that the current rate of immigration would continue and that fertility rates would remain unchanged – and warned that: the Government should not put out figures which are markedly higher than other informed estimates without the most careful qualification, since they are immediately seized on as material for alarmist accounts of our population problems in a way which can be damaging to our task of promoting good race relations.100 Ennals also pointed out that Osborne had used Snow’s large estimate in a letter to the Prime Minister and the Daily Telegraph.101 A few months later, when Ennals himself was asked for projections of when ‘the coloured population will exceed the white’ he responded bluntly that it was not possible to make such forecasts.102 Aside from the insight into inter-departmental wrangling over immigration, this exchange illustrates the acute concern that surrounded the release of any information that might give succour to anti-immigration critics. This was especially important at a time when the Wilson Government was forging a policy package intended to placate anti-immigrant sentiment by restrictive immigration controls, while appeasing liberals and progressives with race relations legislation.103 Through this policy package, the numbers game and assimilationist policies were explicitly fused together. Alongside the restrictions on immigration contained in the 1965 White Paper and the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the government passed anti-discrimination measures in the form of the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968, and established bodies such as the Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council (CIAC) and the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI) to promote the integration of immigrants. This approach was succinctly described in a paper prepared for the Commonwealth Immigration Committee’s Sub-Committee on Integration: The problem of cultural integration of immigrants after they have entered into England cannot be dissociated from the policies in

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which they were admitted, or continue to be admitted. … The whole concept of the integration of immigrants, therefore, conveys the primary need for controlling the numbers of immigrants and planning the process in such a way that the inflow of strangers does not upset the social, economic and cultural equilibrium of the host society.104 Although the policy machinery associated with the limitationintegration equation was new, it should be noted that the idea that assimilation required control of numbers was not: for example, in 1955 a government committee on immigration had asked ‘whether race relations would not deteriorate if there was a significant increase in the coloured population’;105 and the concern about the ‘character’ of immigrants and their capacity to assimilate to Britain’s ‘fully established society’ stretched back to the 1949 Royal Commission Report, and beyond that, to the inter-war population debate. What was novel about the limitation-integration equation, however, was the way in which immigration controls came to be justified in the apparently progressive lexicon of assimilation. Indeed, the most gratuitous instance of racialized controls in this period was defended in precisely this way. In the previous chapter, we saw how the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 (CIA 1968) created a category of ‘non-belonging’ citizens; here I want briefly to illustrate how the legislation was deemed necessary to ensure integration and good race relations, and also show how the idea of nonbelonging was shaped by the racial demographic logic that we have explored in this chapter. Recall that the Labour Government’s decision to pass legislation was made in response to the so-called Kenyan Asians crisis. At the Cabinet meeting held on 22 February 1968, when the decision to put a Bill before Parliament was taken, it was agreed that both the moral and legal objections to preventing the entry of Kenyan Asian CUKCs were significant, but that these objections were outweighed by the consequences of not acting, especially in view of the supposed effects that Kenyan Asian immigration might have on the social services and race relations policy.106 When it came to the Second Reading, less than a week later, the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, sought to justify the Bill by alluding to the rationale behind CIA 1962: I think it is partly that the size and nature of the problem which could arise was not fully appreciated in 1962, and partly in consequence of independence Acts since then, that there has been a

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substantial increase in the arrival of a large number of holders of United Kingdom passports who do not, ‘in common parlance belong’ to this country. Lord Butler was quite clear about what he meant by ‘belonging to this country’. He meant people who were born and lived here … large numbers of citizens whose ancestors had been born here, whose forebears were born here, and who had lived here for a number of years.107 Thus Callaghan appealed to an idea of belonging cleaved from citizenship and tied to origin and descent; not all CUKCs belonged equally in the United Kingdom. Once again, although no explicit reference was made to race, the division of UK citizenship into ‘belongers’ and ‘non-belongers’ according to birth and ancestry introduced a racial marker into UK citizenship. Callaghan also drew upon the need for controls to prevent racism and aid integration. Denying that the Bill was a panic measure, he argued that the issue was not just about Kenyan Asians, but also about nearly a million other African Asians with UK passports; it would be irresponsible, he claimed, for the government not to legislate on ‘this vast issue of whether this country could afford in any circumstances to envisage the prospect of an invasion of a size which I have indicated, even though it is not likely’.108 As I have argued, by tying the right of entry to the United Kingdom to a racialized notion of belonging, the Labour Government effectively brought an end to the expansive conception of UK citizenship and with it any reality behind the rhetoric of Civis Britannicus sum. The ‘size and nature of the problem’ caused the Government to turn its back on ‘non-belonging’ CUKCs fleeing a brutal regime in Kenya, thus rendering them effectively stateless. The Home Office was acutely aware that this smacked of racism. For example, a memorandum on ‘The Scope of the Bill’ asked the question whether Section 1 (the grandparent clause) was ‘racialist’. Whilst the answer given was negative, it was only by pushing the distinction between the letter and spirit of the law to its limit that this was achieved: Clause 1 … applies only to citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies holding United Kingdom passports and the fact that it tends largely to exempt from control people of British race, and largely to end the exemption of people not of British race, is because the United Kingdom is largely populated by people of British race. The test adopted is geographical not racial.109

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The precise wording here is important: it was the test, as opposed to the intention or effect, that was ‘geographical not racial’. Similarly, the memorandum considered ‘the tolerable rate of Asian immigration’, wherein ‘Asian’ had as much a racial as geographical implication.110 With the Home Office enquiring into ‘the morality of the proposed extension of immigration control’ and the Commonwealth Office voicing its opposition to the idea of ‘non-belonging’ CUKCs, there was clearly discomfort in policy-making circles about the Bill.111 Despite their denials, officials were only too aware that critics who alleged the Bill was racist had powerful grounds for doing so. Paradoxically, when it came to selling the legislation to those who were sceptical or hostile, a race-related argument was freely deployed. With the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill and the Race Relations Bill later that year, the synthesis of immigration controls and integrationist measures was completed. In his memorandum to the Cabinet on the need, ‘as a matter of urgency’, to introduce an immigration bill, Callaghan argued: Our best hope of developing in these Islands a multi-racial society free of strife lies in striking the right balance between the number of Commonwealth citizens we can allow in and our ability to ensure them, once here, a fair deal not only in tangible matters like jobs, housing and other social services but, more intangibly, against racial prejudice. If we have to restrict immigration now for good reasons, as I think we must, the imminent Race Relations Bill will be a timely factor in helping us to show that we are aiming at a fair balance all round. Conversely, I believe that the reception of the Race Relations Bill will be prejudiced in many minds, and support for it weakened, if people think that the numbers entering are unlimited or unreasonably high.112

5

Conclusion

This chapter has shown how the development of immigration controls in post-war Britain was governed by a racial demographic logic. As the quotation from the Commission for Racial Equality at the beginning of the chapter claims, immigration legislation was ‘concerned primarily with a perceived need to slow or prevent the further growth through immigration of particular ethnic minority communities within the population’. Immigrants arrived in a society that was sceptical, if not hostile, to colonial immigration, and as their numbers increased, the

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British Government responded by developing immigration controls with the purpose of reducing non-white entrants. The creation of a multiracial society was resisted because it was believed to threaten Britain’s ‘fully established society’. Although race was seldom articulated as an explicit factor behind immigration legislation, restrictions on the number of immigrants able to enter and the assimilation of those who did enter were dictated by a racial demographic logic. The distinction between citizenship and belonging – made explicit in 1968, but implicit throughout earlier debates – was a racialized one. While CUKC was a formal legal category including a range of UK, colonial and Commonwealth-born persons, belonging was understood in terms of origin and descent. In differentiating between citizens according to belonging, and in restricting the right of entry only to ‘citizens who belong’, policy-makers built Britain’s immigration regime on a racial foundation.

4 ‘Coloured Dick Whittingtons in this Land of Socialized Gold’: Immigration and the Welfare State

1

Introduction

While the figure of the welfare scrounger is a well-worn trope in antiimmigrant rhetoric, remarkably little attention has been paid to how allegations of welfare parasitism influenced political debate and immigration policy-making in the post-war period. This chapter examines those allegations and their consideration by the British Government in the 1950s and 1960s. Right from the time when the first colonial immigrants began arriving in Britain in significant numbers, the welfare state figured in arguments about their political, economic, and social impact. Allegations of welfare parasitism – the view that immigrants swelled the ranks of the unemployed, were a burden on public funds, and generally undermined the industry of the population – pervaded newspapers, government documents, Parliamentary debates and police reports. These allegations went unsupported by credible evidence and were built upon racist stereotypes of non-white people as indolent and lethargic. When, in the second half of the 1950s, the Cabinet Committee on immigration investigated whether immigrants did indeed make disproportionate claims on the social security services it was shown that allegations of welfare scrounging were unsupportable. The discourse of welfare parasitism did not disappear, especially in the tabloid press, but it soon ceased to function as an argument in support of immigration controls at Whitehall. The argument proceeds in three stages. The first stage clears the theoretical ground with a discussion of the foundation of the welfare state in terms of citizenship, belonging and national community. It is argued that the British welfare state was founded on a restrictive, ‘thick’ conception of belonging and national community, rather than 79

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an expansive, ‘thin’ definition of citizenship. Building on the argument of the two previous chapters (namely, that while colonial CUKCs possessed the same citizenship rights as persons born in the United Kingdom they were not thought to belong) this section shows how the foundations of the welfare state facilitated the portrayal of colonial immigrants as welfare parasites. Outside of Britain’s fully established national community, to paraphrase the report of the Royal Commission on Population, colonial CUKCs were also outside the circle of deserving beneficiaries of the welfare state. In the case of social security, colonial immigrants’ situation as ‘non-belongers’ was reinforced by the establishment of a two-tier structure of National Insurance and National Assistance. The social security scheme established by the 1946 National Insurance Act was based not on citizenship, but on contributions. This was famously announced by Sir William Beveridge as benefits in return for contributions, and was reflected in his admonitions against a ‘Santa Claus state’. This structure had the unforeseen effect of exacerbating the deserving/undeserving dichotomy at the core of allegations of welfare parasitism because recent immigrants could not receive insurance until they had contributed into the scheme, which required them to have been working in Britain for a sufficient period of time. In the meantime, those in search of employment were left to rely upon National Assistance, a scheme which retained some of the stigma of the old Poor Law.1 In summary, although colonial immigrants to Britain were de jure citizens, they were not regarded as members of the British national community;2 thus they could receive assistance but were often depicted as undeserving recipients. The purpose of this stage of the argument is to show that allegations of welfare parasitism were not purely arbitrary, but grew out of cultural assumptions which underpinned the welfare state and the institutional structure of social security. The second section of the chapter draws on archival materials to show how a discourse of welfare parasitism developed in the early 1950s. This discourse had two related components: (1) the claim that colonial immigrants were opportunists attracted to Britain by generous social security and other welfare provisions – ‘Dick Whittingtons’ drawn to a ‘land of socialized gold’; and (2) the allegation that once settled in Britain immigrants did not find employment, became a public charge, and were generally malingerers. Whilst such views were most vociferously expressed in tabloid journalism they also surfaced in government debates during the 1950s. Early committees and working parties on immigration seem to have assumed the veracity of (1), and

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when the Metropolitan Police was requested to provide information on the ‘public morals’ of immigrants, first by the Home Office and then by the Prime Minister, allegations that they were lazy, of ‘low mentality’ and a ‘low standard of habits’ peppered the responses. Reading these reports one would think that (2) were also true. In fact, such thinking fed off racist stereotypes of non-white people, stereotypes with long histories and origins in imperialist propaganda. The third stage consists of an investigation into how the British Government considered the central allegations of welfare parasitism and came to refute them. On the basis of evidence supplied by the Ministry of Labour and the National Assistance Board, the Government found that immigrants did not experience disproportionate levels of unemployment and rejected claims that they constituted a significant public charge. This culminated in the Cabinet’s explicit statements when it came to restrict immigration in 1962 that the rationale behind the legislation was not ‘economic’ but ‘social’. Although policy-makers refuted the allegation that immigrants were feckless idlers, it did not disappear from public debate. The language of welfare parasitism receded but did not fade entirely in the arguments of those who sought restrictive legislation, and it continued apace in sections of the national and local press.

2

Foundations of the British welfare state

The set of institutions which make up the welfare state were established in Britain during the immediate post-war period. A series of Parliamentary acts during the late 1940s created a system of welfare provision, which, although not entirely without precedent, was genuinely new.3 For reformers such as William Beveridge, Aneurin Bevan, T. H. Marshall and R. M. Titmuss, welfare provision had to overcome the stigma that was associated with the Victorian Poor Law and interwar Family Means Test, and it had to be more comprehensive than either the reforms of the 1906–14 Liberal Government or the incremental and largely ad hoc developments of the inter-war years. Circumstances provided the opportunity to create a universal and comprehensive system. As one historian has argued, the Second World War was ‘genuinely a People’s War’; it ‘put the social position of the British population at the very heart of the war effort’.4 In addition, the experience of wartime mobilization meant that ‘expectations of the state and those who ran it were high’.5 Mobilization on the Home Front, including state control

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of industry and labour, evacuation, food shortages and rationing, and the planning of hospital services under the Emergency Medical Service, had both practical and symbolic importance. Practically, it demonstrated the capacity of the state to intervene in society and economy to regulate and manage their functioning; symbolically, it provided a set of common experiences that helped create a sense of shared identity and mutual obligation. Above all, it was the common experience of adversity – especially the experience of bombing, which did not respect class distinctions – that strengthened the resolve to reform post-war society. Thus post-war reconstruction was founded more on recent historical experience than abstract arguments about citizenship. Although historians have stressed that the origins of the welfare state lie in developments before 1939, it is impossible to discount the role of what Titmuss described as the ‘sense of social solidarity’ generated by the war.6 Quite simply, the establishment of the welfare state cannot be understood independent of the war effort. As a Picture Post article of 1941 claimed: ‘our plan for the new Britain is not something outside the war, or something after the war. It is an essential part of our war aims. It is, indeed, our most positive war aim. The new Britain is the country we are fighting for’.7 One of the major aims of the welfare state’s architects was the integration of all socio-economic classes into a common national culture. A central figure here was T. H. Marshall. He argued that citizenship is not just a legal status but also an identity entailing certain common cultural values. It involves three elements: civil rights, such as freedom of association, speech, and the right to form contracts and own property; political rights, including the right to vote and stand for election; and social rights, such as entitlement to a minimum level of economic and social well-being as members of society. In his influential 1949 lecture, ‘Citizenship and Social Class’, Marshall claimed that ‘citizenship requires a … direct sense of community membership based on loyalty to a civilization which is a common possession’. Indeed, ‘citizenship’, he wrote, ‘is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community’.8 Marshall wanted to extend citizenship rights to include basic social rights, via the welfare state, precisely in order to strengthen the sense of common membership in the national community; above all else, social cohesion informed his thinking.9 The provision of health care, education and social security was a way of integrating previously excluded groups into a common national culture.

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Since inclusion in a national culture that is a ‘common possession and heritage’ was essential to the unity of the nation, providing basic social rights would reinforce ‘loyalty to a civilization that is a common possession’.10 Reformers such as Marshall saw the integration of the working class as their main task. The political theorist, Will Kymlicka, describes this as follows: Marshall assumed that cultural integration was good for the working class, since they were of course native-born English – i.e. English by ethnicity, religion, language. They ought to be co-owners of the national culture, as it were, since it is their national culture. They are not members of some other nation, with its own national culture. They are English, and have a birthright to share in its national history and culture.11 State provision of certain services would therefore help to mitigate the effects of class divisions, generating a commonality among the population and making the British state more unified, more secure, and easier to govern. For Marshall and other reformers, the social rights afforded by the welfare state would bolster formal citizenship by generating a shared sense of belonging. The welfare state was simultaneously premised upon the national community and intended to reinforce it. As Kymlicka has argued, the extension of citizenship to include basic social rights was part of a process of nation-building. This may have been a progressive ambition, but it tended to assume ethnic and cultural homogeneity: ‘the sort of solidarity essential for a welfare state require[d] that citizens have a strong sense of common identity and common membership, so that they will make sacrifices for each other, and this common identity [was] assumed to require (or at least be facilitated by) a common language and history’.12 In a similar vein, John Crowley argues that Marshall’s theory of citizenship comprised a national dimension: for Marshall ‘citizenship is a form of “belonging together”, of common membership’.13 Working within this framework, the architects of the welfare state wanted to reduce economic inequalities between classes, but they did not challenge status inequalities – ‘that it is better to be English than Irish; better to be Protestant than Catholic (and better to be a Christian of either sort than Jewish or Muslim); better to be white than black or brown or yellow’.14 Unwittingly, the emphasis upon a common cultural heritage as the basis of social rights had the consequence of exacerbating the salience of such ‘status’ inequalities for welfare. For if the

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social rights of the welfare state are premised upon a ‘common culture’ what occurs when that culture is diversified through immigration? Moreover, what occurs when immigrant groups with formal citizenship but with a different cultural ‘possession and heritage’ – the ‘non-belonging’ citizens of the New Commonwealth – seek to exercise their legal rights in the national community? In order to bring into sharper focus the interaction of wartime experiences with ideas about citizenship and belonging in the development of social security policy, it is well to consider Sir William Beveridge’s famous report, Social Insurance and Allied Services. The Beveridge Report, as it became known, was published in December 1942. Going well beyond his original terms of reference, Beveridge claimed that the social security of the British nation could only be achieved by a comprehensive scheme, including the establishment of a national health service, universal children’s allowances, and full use of the powers of the state to maintain employment. He still believed that the birth-rate was declining, as he had in his 1923–4 debate with Keynes (see Chapter 3), and this was a specific motivation for his advocacy of family allowances.15 He considered family allowances to be justified by considerations of social security and ‘from consideration of numbers of population and care of children’. Echoing the inter-war population debate, Beveridge claimed that ‘with its present rate of reproduction the British race cannot continue’.16 ‘In the next thirty years,’ he wrote, ‘housewives as mothers have vital work to do in ensuring the adequate continuance of the British race and of British ideals in the world’.17 The continuing importance of the views he expressed in his debate with Keynes in the 1920s are clear. Beveridge was motivated in part by concern for the effects of population decline, in part by concern for social justice, and in part by his belief in the potential of social technologies to produce a healthy, productive and secure society. The Beveridge Report does not read like most government documents. It is characterized by a reforming zeal and some high-flown rhetoric that is, to put it mildly, unusual for the form. Beveridge declared that ‘a revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not patching’. The war was ‘abolishing landmarks of every kind’ and the opportunity to use ‘experience in a clear field’ must not be missed.18 His plan for social security was principally an attack upon want, but ‘Want is only one of the five giants on the road of reconstruction, and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.’ He described his plan to attack the five giants as ‘not one for giving to everybody something for

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nothing and without trouble’, but a system of ‘contributions in return for benefits’; he specifically denied that his proposals amounted to a ‘Santa Claus’ state with free gifts for all.19 The report closes with a rhetorical appeal to national unity: Freedom from want cannot be forced on a democracy or given to a democracy. It must be won by them. Winning it needs courage and faith and a sense of national unity: courage to face facts and difficulties and overcome them; faith in our future and in the ideals of fair-play and freedom for which century after century our forefathers were prepared to die; a sense of national unity overriding the interests of any class or section. The Plan for Social Security in this Report is submitted by one who believes that in this supreme crisis the British people will not be found wanting, of courage and faith and national unity, of material and spiritual power to play their part in achieving both social security and the victory of justice among nations upon which social security depends.20 The diction here is significant. In his repeated calls for ‘national unity’, Beveridge reveals that his conception of a population protected by social security is firmly rooted in both recent historical experience and the heritage of the national community. Beveridge, just as much as Marshall, intended the welfare state to foster social inclusiveness, but in appealing to a sense of belonging he too created the potential for the exclusion of citizens who were outside of the national community. Despite the immense popularity of the Beveridge Report (it sold over 600,000 copies) the Coalition Government reacted warily at first, concerned as it was not to raise public expectations too high. Nevertheless, the White Paper of 1944, Social Insurance, broadly followed Beveridge’s recommendations and occasionally even his diction: for example, it referred to ‘the solidarity and unity of the nation which in war have been its bulwark against aggression and in peace will be its guarantee of success in the fight against individual want and mischance’.21 With the election of a Labour Government in July 1945, implementation of the White Paper came quickly. The National Insurance Act of 1946 and then the National Assistance Act of 1948 established a two-tier structure of social security. A social insurance system funded through flatrate contributions was at the core of the scheme. Pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits for workers would be funded in this way. This was supplemented by an assistance scheme funded through taxation that was intended to provide a safety net for those not covered by

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insurance. National Assistance was means-tested, which came to mean that it retained something of the stigma of the old Poor Law.22 Furthermore, as François Lafitte, the young Labour radical, observed in Britain’s Way to Social Security, there was a danger of ‘too many people [being] excluded from insurance’.23 Contributory social insurance excluded those who were outside or new to the labour market, making them reliant on National Assistance. This, of course, would include recently-arrived immigrant labour. Although it would be churlish to criticize the architects of this scheme for not having foreseen colonial immigration, the structure of social security would nevertheless reinforce the deserving/undeserving dichotomy of British-born and colonial CUKCs that was already potential in the appeals to national community which underpinned the welfare state.

3

The discourse of welfare parasitism

Colonial immigrants came to Britain for a range of reasons: recession, high unemployment, and a low standard of living in the sending societies; the attraction of a new life in the ‘Mother Country’ of imperial propaganda; or a job in an economy experiencing labour shortages. Migration itself was facilitated by the decreasing cost of international travel and, for many early Caribbean immigrants, the experience of having been stationed in Britain during the war. What is most striking about contemporary discussion of immigrants’ motivations, however, is the incessant focus on the alleged attraction of the welfare state, especially social security. When, in February 1954, the Cabinet concurred with the view that immigrants ‘were attracted to this country by the high level of its Social Services’24 they were endorsing a well-worn argument. Whilst this claim was most vigorously pursued in the tabloid press, it was not limited to that sphere by any means. As already mentioned, the discourse of welfare parasitism had two related components: (1) the claim that colonial immigrants were primarily attracted to Britain by welfare provisions, as opposed, say, to the availability of jobs;25 and (2) the claim that once in Britain immigrants failed to secure employment and became a burden on the public purse through dependence on welfare benefits, especially National Assistance. The first component of welfare parasitism alleged that the welfare state acted as a magnet to the destitute and lazy subjects of the Commonwealth and colonies, while the second asserted that immigrants were indigent, and undermined the productivity and efficiency of the British economy.26 The discourse of welfare parasitism

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was in tension with another, equally common, idea – that immigrants were a threat to the employment of British workers. Thus, opponents of immigration asserted both ‘They’ll take our jobs’ and ‘They will not work’. On the one hand, immigrants were opposed as unwanted competition within the labour force, on the other, they were opposed as burdens upon the labour force. In this section I trace the influence of the discourse of welfare parasitism in the immigration debate. In the months immediately following the arrival of the Empire Windrush, the Attlee Government established an interdepartmental Working Party to look into the issue of recruitment from the colonies. At the first meeting of the Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour, on 6 October 1948, clear opposition to any ‘mass immigration scheme’ was expressed, and the minutes of the meeting reveal how welfare provisions were considered to be one of the major attractions of Britain to colonial subjects: any immigration of workers to the United Kingdom was almost certain to be permanent owing to (a) the fact that the workers, once here, could not be returned against their will, and (b) that the vastly superior social insurance conditions in the United Kingdom were a definite attraction.27 The Ministry of Labour was particularly opposed to the immigration of colonial CUKCs on the grounds that they were likely to become a burden on the welfare state and would not be welcomed by employers. Moreover, as we saw in Chapter 3, in contrast to EVWs colonial immigrants were also colonial citizens and therefore ‘little control would be exercisable over them’. It would be difficult to restrict them to certain jobs and difficult to repatriate them against their will when their labour power was no longer required. ‘Whereas aliens had to work in the job for which they were recruited’, there was a danger that colonial labour could ‘swell the ranks of the unemployed’.28 Faced with a proposal by the Colonial Office (which often championed the cause of colonial immigrants) that recruitment of colonial workers should be considered, it was claimed that West Indians were not suited to the jobs which were available in Britain and that: the lowest subsistence level likely to be available to Colonial workers in receipt of financial aid from the National Assistance Board would be very much higher than anything to which unemployed Colonial workers have ever been accustomed in the West Indies. A drift away from

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essential work in order to take advantage of these relatively generous N.A.B. rates would frustrate the object of the Colonial recruitment scheme.29 It was also argued that both employers and workers showed discomfort with ‘this class of labour’. According to the Ministry of Labour, the experience of immigrants from the Windrush had shown ‘that newly arrived workers tend to be quarrelsome among themselves and to react violently to real or imaginary affronts’. As a result ‘no organized large scale immigration of male Colonial workers should be contemplated’.30 The successor committee on immigration, the Inter-departmental Committee on Colonial People in the United Kingdom, met four times during 1950, and throughout the year there was an acute concern about the number of immigrants who were unemployed or claiming assistance. In an attempt to gather some information, the National Assistance Board (NAB) was asked to provide information on the number of ‘colonial people’ receiving assistance. A sample was taken in August, which found that a total of 572 such persons were being assisted, nearly half of them in London. The NAB reported that although over 500 had made some previous claim, the great majority applied for help because they were temporarily out of work. Assuming that this sample was not exceptional, the Board estimated that the yearly cost of such payments was £41,500.31 This suggested that immigrants were perhaps not such a burden after all. However, early in 1951, the Colonial Office received a report from the NAB Area Office in Stockwell, London, which claimed that although only 12 out of 250 unemployed ‘coloured people’ living in the area were in receipt of assistance they formed an unassimilable wedge: ‘these people are almost unemployable owing to their uncouth behaviour and arrogant and quarrelsome manner. They are not wholly civilized as we understand it.’ The report went on to claim that although some ‘coloured workers’ were efficient and productive, certain groups were not, which gave ‘the whole black community a bad name’. West Africans were singled out and described as ‘unskilled … [and] also naturally lazy, and no employer would choose them in preference to a white man’.32 Unemployment among immigrants was not only put down to indolence, but was sometimes thought to be due to antagonistic intra-employee relations. For example, the Inter-departmental Committee considered another memorandum in which it was alleged that the ‘sporadic employment’ of ‘coloured people’ was ‘in many instances due to employers finding difficulties arising amongst their

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other employees where coloured people are engaged, especially where there are white girls also employed in the same works’.33 Previously, the Cabinet Committee on immigration had also been considering the potential attractions of the welfare state to colonial CUKCs.34 From the outset, the majority of ministers viewed large-scale colonial immigration as undesirable – something to be managed and limited as best as possible. At the first meeting on 24 July 1950, discussion centred upon possible means of control. ‘The main problem in relation to the immigration of British subjects from Colonial territories’, a memorandum under discussion announced, ‘is that they are tempted to come to the United Kingdom by better prospects of employment and in the knowledge that if they fail to find work they will be supported by the social services at a higher standard of living than many of them had in the colonies.’ Three potential powers of deportation were considered: for immigrants who had been resident in the United Kingdom for less than two years and had sought National Assistance, for those that had been convicted of a serious offence, and for those who had attempted to create industrial unrest. All were rejected for fear of undermining the rhetoric of Civis Britannicus sum and antagonizing liberal opinion with what could be seen as a ‘concealed colour test’ (although the second of these three powers of deportation was eventually created under Part II of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act).35 Early the following year the Cabinet Committee met once again. This time the assumption that immigrants were attracted to Britain by the welfare state was explicit, as was the particular importance of National Assistance: ‘the social services of this country, and particularly the rights of which any destitute person could avail himself under the National Assistance Act, inevitably acted as a considerable attraction’.36 This was despite the fact that a Home Office memorandum had been presented which argued that there was no large-scale ‘unemployment or destitution’ among immigrant groups.37 The following year even the Ministry of Labour, one of the Whitehall departments least sympathetic to immigration, denied the ‘existence of any exceptional degree of unemployment among the migrants’.38 The tension between allegations of welfare dependence and internal evidence on the subject, which was eventually to undermine the influence of such allegations in the immigration debate, was therefore present from the start. Shortly after this exchange, an especially provocative document came to the attention of the Home Office, in which the supposed attraction of the welfare state to immigrants was associated with a

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range of ills, from a threat to public health to communist-inspired social unrest. The memorandum, prepared for the Advisory Panel of the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee by J. Waring Sainsbury, Town Clerk of Kensington, claimed that: In pre-war days the presence of foreign or coloured communities in London presented no particular problem. Today, however, conditions are not normal. The acute housing shortage, the higher standards of hygiene and public health and the better living conditions which the mass of the people in this country have been educated to require are causing the Londoner to look with increasing disfavour on the free immigration of coloured people accustomed to much lower standards in their own countries. At the same time, the attractions of social security and the social services provided by the Welfare State are resulting in persons from abroad flocking in ever increasing numbers to this country. It would be unfortunate if the principle of ‘the open door’ were to lead to the growth of racial prejudice and discrimination from which this country has hitherto been free and which would provide a fertile field for Communist activity.39 Under the heading ‘Public Health Problems’, the report claimed that ‘apart from the danger to public health arising from overcrowding, the poverty and lower living standards of coloured people frequently cause danger to health’. It concluded that ‘better arrangements should be made centrally for the Welfare of the Coloured population. An interdepartmental organisation might well be set up upon which the representatives of the London boroughs should be invited to serve.’40 Claims such as these were taken seriously at the highest levels. In March, a Home Office official wrote to the Metropolitan Police on behalf of the Home Secretary, asking for observations on some of the issues raised in the above memorandum, particularly concerns over the allegedly immoral and anti-social behaviour of ‘coloured immigrants’. The range of responses that Chief Superintendents submitted to Scotland Yard demonstrate a remarkable consistency. Almost without fail immigrants were depicted as lazy, immoral, aggressive, and unusually predisposed towards criminality. The conclusion of the Chief Superintendent of N Division at Stoke Newington police station was typical: ‘quite a lot of them are indolent and lazy and are quite satisfied to get along on money received from public funds’.41 ‘Commander 2’ of Paddington Green Station was even less tentative: ‘It is evident that

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problems of moral conduct and anti-social behaviour exist. In the main these coloured people are lazy and of poor education. The problems now experienced will no doubt increase as this section of the population grows.’ The Chief Superintendent of D Division, Euston, divided immigrants into three classes: students, ‘unskilled labour of low mentality’ who are generally ‘lazy’, and ‘cunning and unprincipled crooks’. The third group were ‘loathsome creatures’, but the second group also caused trouble. The Chief Superintendent of F Division at Hammersmith Station linked the attractions of social security with a potential flood of immigrants clamouring for benefits for themselves and their children: There is little doubt that the men, having found the land ‘flowing with milk and honey’ are urging their families and kindred to join them and partake of the benefits so loosely obtainable here. What this means in the future I dread to think if they breed at the same prolific rate as in their own countries.42 Summarizing reports such as these, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police wrote to the Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, Aliens Department, arguing that: In the Camden Town, Euston, Bayswater, Maida Vale, Stoke Newington, North Kensington and Stepney areas many coloured men live with white women and a considerable number live with convicted prostitutes, some of the men living on the immoral earnings of these women. A number of the men are in receipt of Public Assistance. Police are frequently called to the Board’s Office to deal with disputes and disturbances, and there have been some cases of fraud on the National Assistance Board. Police are also frequently called to deal with disputes between coloured people. Brawls and stabbing affrays occur occasionally, but the latter are not common occurrences. … On the whole the West African is regarded as truculent, lazy and indolent. His ethical conduct is deplorably low and he tends to gravitate towards Public Assistance, dishonesty and crime in preference to hard work.43 Despite this racist indictment, the Commissioner claimed that ‘there is no racial problem’ and ‘at the moment the presence of coloured people cannot be regarded as a major problem in the Metropolitan Police District’. However, and crucially, ‘in the course of time it may develop

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into one unless steps … [are] … taken to restrict the entry of unwanted persons, and to repatriate those who prove to be unsuitable to reside in this country’. The Assistant Commissioner also made a distinction between Jamaicans who were generally not ‘troublesome’ and West Africans who caused many difficulties. The overriding tenor of the letter is that an impending social problem had been created by an incursion of ‘coloured immigrants’ who were difficult to employ and a burden on the British economy. In 1954, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, asked the Metropolitan Police for further information on colonial immigrants resident in London. Following the publication of a sensationalist article in the Empire News, entitled ‘Colour Bar War is Threatened in London’, Churchill requested information ‘regarding racial disturbances and on the question of feeling in London on the increasing number of coloured people arriving from the Colonies’.44 Scotland Yard coordinated a series of reports from District Chief Superintendents, and a panoply of racist stereotypes was the result. Colonial immigrants (still mostly from the Caribbean at this time) were depicted as work-shy, aggressive and immoral. Whilst they were mostly dismissive of the article’s sensationalism, the Chief Superintendents who were canvassed by Scotland Yard insisted that although the ‘problem’ was not yet severe it had the potential to become so. The Chief Superintendent of J Division at Hackney station wrote that: What appears to be worrying the locals is what happens to the coloured men in the event of a trade recession, does the white man or the coloured man lose his job. … There is also criticism of the number who draw Public Assistance, also of the arrogant manner which many coloured persons adopt, and of their very low standard of habits. … Although at the moment the number of coloured persons resident on this division present no particular problem, I am of the opinion that if their number continues to increase at the rate it has done during the past two years, a very definite and critical problem may be created.45 Another report told of how ‘many white people know that numerous coloured people who arrive in this country without money are supported by public funds, and this additional burden on the taxpayer is keenly resented’. Immigrants were rarely discussed as a potential benefit to the nation. They came here with little or nothing to offer, and expected the state

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to provide for them: ‘the majority … seem to be shiftless and have little intention of working hard, are of low mentality, and seem to expect to find a paradise in which they will be kept by the State’.46 Even the lowliest form of existence in Britain was thought to be superior to life in the West Indies, and this, rather than discrimination in the housing market, was held to explain the poor living conditions that West Indians often experienced: ‘Many coloured people newly arrived in this country, experience more comfort than they are used to and regard slum property as a paradise when compared with their living accommodation in their native countries.’ Immigrants ‘lowered living standards’ in the neighbourhoods in which they settled, which became the cause of resentment amongst white people.47 With opinions such as these in circulation, a Parliamentary delegation was sent to tour the West Indies in order to investigate and report on the conditions that were causing people to emigrate. A Parliamentary Private Secretary, Nigel Fisher, reported back to Parliament that the two main factors causing people to leave were unemployment and over-population. He argued that pull factors were also significant, but only in certain instances. In his summary of the island of Montserrat, Fisher reported that ‘due to the extreme depression … the view was expressed that one of the migration factors might be the existence of the Welfare State and a minimum subsistence standard in Britain’, but he pointed out that ‘it is not considered that this motive applied to the West Indies generally’.48 Popular perceptions that immigrants were a public charge were not likely to be dislodged by a low-key Parliamentary investigation however, especially considering the depiction of immigrants in sections of the national press. In the words of one letter to the Daily Telegraph, many Britons viewed the new immigrants as ‘coloured Dick Whittingtons anxious to seek their fortunes in this land of Socialised gold’.49 The same, striking image was used in a Parliamentary debate on immigration by a backbench MP, the appropriately named T. L. Iremonger. He asked the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs if he was aware that the Jamaican press was reporting that the British Government encouraged migration to Britain and was ‘giving the impression that the way is wide open to thousands of “Dick Whittingtons”’.50 The Dick Whittington trope had connotations of innocence and naivety, which were also implicit in more sympathetic reports that depicted immigrants as believing they were heading towards ‘paradise’. For example, a story in the Sunday Graphic about the ‘critical problem’

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of immigrants in Cardiff claimed that it had become an ‘article of faith on the west coast of Africa and in the West Indies that England is “a soft thing”’. Six beliefs apparently made up this article of faith: ‘anyone who reaches England from the Empire is entitled to 33s. a week’; punishment for stowaways is ‘nominal’; odd jobs are easy to acquire; ‘white women (on the proceeds of whose prostitution one can live) are almost equally easy’; marijuana offers a ‘side road to easy money’; and ‘England, barring the weather, is an earthly paradise’.51 West Indians in particular were portrayed as childlike, with an invariably sunny disposition. Reporting on a BBC television programme on the ‘colour bar’ in Britain, the Daily Express described how West Indians responded to experiences of hostility in Britain: ‘bewildered West Indians explained with childlike simplicity that they “had always been taught we are British subjects”’.52 Thus colonial citizens were simultaneously associated with vice and illicit drugs, and portrayed as naïves who saw the Mother Country of imperial propaganda as an ‘earthly paradise’. More common, however, were straightforward depictions of immigrants as scroungers attracted to Britain by generous social security provisions. This was most forcibly put in popular tabloid newspapers. A headline in the News Chronicle railed: ‘These men will not work: coloured idlers alarm six cities.’ The ensuing story was divided up by bold sub-headings: the first proclaims ‘They live on public money’; the second, ‘Get together’, urging the host population to unite in fighting immigrant parasitism; the third, ‘Six in one room’, which begins a short conclusion on the poor living standards of immigrants. In between these sub-headings were accusations of mass unemployment among immigrant communities, associated with laziness, aggressive behaviour, drug use, and association with prostitutes (racial discrimination received no consideration whatsoever). Interestingly, on a cutting of this article contained in a Ministry of Labour file, the words ‘this is mostly nonsense’ have been written by an unidentified official.53 In January 1955, the Daily Sketch ran a series of articles that encapsulated the allegations of welfare parasitism in an especially forceful way. The New Year’s Day edition carried a front page story with the heading ‘Scandal of Airlift to “Paradise”’ underneath which the paper recounted how ‘uninvited West Indians’ had yesterday arrived ‘to swell the 30,500 already here’: the first few days of the New Year will bring … 1,000 jobless, homeless, sometimes penniless coloured men and women – duped to

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believe in a bright future in Britain. … Many of them will join the 10,000 who have already been helped by the National Assistance Board.54 With ‘100,000 more … awaiting passage to Britain’ there was a potential ‘tidal wave of immigration’. These comments may seem inflammatory enough, but the Sketch had only just begun its invective. The articles continued throughout the week with headlines such as ‘Black Misery’ and ‘A Disgrace to the Good Name of Britain’. It was this latter piece that closed the series and spelled out the Sketch’s editorial view: These poor, pathetic, deluded people put the good name of this country to shame in the eyes of the whole world. …What do they face when they reach their snowbound ‘Paradise’..? Poverty, cold, discomfort, doss-houses, idleness. Thousands of West Indians already in this country are out of work. Ten thousand have already been granted National Assistance. That means that ten thousand have been helped by money supplied by YOU. How long is this misery to go on?55 If the sensationalist style of such articles was the preserve of tabloid newspapers, the basic allegation of welfare parasitism was not. In January 1954, the Daily Telegraph reported on ‘Cities’ Concern at Influx of West Indians’. It claimed that immigrants were a burden on the communities they settled in, in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. Specifically, 2,000 of the 10,000 ‘coloured population’ of Merseyside were alleged to be in receipt of some form of public assistance. No source was cited for this figure. In keeping with a broadsheet newspaper’s concern for putative objectivity, however, the article does mention an alternative explanation voiced by one West Indian himself: M. F. Johnson, a pharmacist, is quoted as saying that ‘they come because they are ambitious to better themselves, not because they think a Welfare State will keep them if they do not work’. Johnson insisted that those immigrants who were unemployed were not predominantly scroungers, but the victims of discrimination by employers. West Indians did not choose to avoid work, they were refused work or offered only menial jobs by racist employers.56 Entire stories challenging stereotypes of indolence and scrounging were rare. One example was the Empire News, which ran a story in July 1959 on immigrants arriving from the West Indies asking ‘Why did these

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700 people vanish into the night?’ The answer was that they created ‘a self-imposed iron-curtain of secrecy’ for fear that: a ‘slanted’ report might re-stir the uneasily slumbering monster of racial hatred. Scared that it might spark off the resentful tubthumping talk. Talk like this. ‘Why should they come here, taking our jobs, marrying our women, drawing National Assistance, setting up slums, putting women on the streets and living off vice?’ The truth, the article recounted, was far from such claims; immigrants were not a significant threat to the ‘security of employment’ and they used National Assistance only as a ‘last resort. … They come to England to work.’57 Given the generally negative coverage in the national press, it is hardly surprising that popular disquiet was swelling by the mid-1950s. National Assistance claims and allegations that immigrants were a charge on public funds became a focus of the more generalized view that they were burdensome and disruptive. In a memorandum to the Cabinet, the Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, warned of the growing public attention being given to colonial immigration, and to the allegation of parasitism in particular. A number of MPs, he claimed, had written to government departments reporting complaints from their constituents: complaints are becoming more frequent that large numbers of coloured people are living on National Assistance or the immoral earnings of white women, and special objection has been taken to the way in which some coloured people acquire tenancies of old property and, by their conduct, make life difficult for white people living in the same building or area.58 Similar views were echoed in sporadic Parliamentary questions by MPs. In October 1954, six months after the above memorandum had been considered by the Cabinet, Peter Remnant (Con.) asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, Osbert Peake, if he thought ‘it fair to those in this country who contribute to the moneys provided that a penniless person should come into the country and immediately be able to draw National Assistance benefit within a matter of days?’ The Minister dodged the question, directing Remnant to the Home Secretary.59 That same day Peake gave a written answer to a question from William Steward (Con.) on the number and circumstances of

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immigrants drawing National Assistance. He replied that no such information was available, but sought to reassure the questioner ‘that the National Assistance Board make no payments before inquiring into an applicant’s circumstances’.60 Just over a week later, an adjournment debate on colonial immigrants took place. Identifying Jamaica as the ‘primary cause’ of the ‘problem’, John Hynd (Lab.) set out the causes of the migration as over-population and unemployment in Jamaica, combined with British labour shortages and ‘the very great attraction of social security’. Hynd outlined the ‘problems’ as he saw them and then asserted that the government owed it to Parliament and the public at large to spell out what they were doing, and insisted that a public inquiry should be appointed.61 Henry Hopkinson, the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, replied sympathetically, but stressed that the movement of British subjects ‘is not something we want to tamper with lightly’, nevertheless, the government was investigating the issues surrounding the ‘possibility of legislation’. The image of the immigrant as an indolent undesirable became the stock in trade of the most vociferous anti-immigrant campaigners. Sir Cyril Osborne, for example, put it to the Prime Minister that the British Government should have powers to ‘exclude the criminal, the idle and the unfit of all races’.62 And by the late 1950s allegations of parasitism were a well established part of anti-immigrant vocabulary. In an adjournment debate in November 1959, Norman Pannell complained about the absence of controls, announcing that ‘should the immigrant be diseased, illiterate, destitute or have a criminal record, he cannot be denied entry. If he has not a job to go to he can seek, and obtain, National Assistance for an indefinite period’.63 The following year, Lt.-Col. J. K. Cordeaux (Con.) asked the Home Secretary, Rab Butler, if he was aware of the ‘real sense of grievance’ amongst pensioners ‘when they are told that their pensions cannot be raised, while at the same time they see people coming here from other Commonwealth countries and getting National Assistance as soon as they arrive’.64 Cordeaux recommended that the Home Secretary consult with the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to introduce a system whereby National Assistance payments ‘can be repaid at a suitable weekly rate by such immigrants as soon as they obtain work’. Butler was hardly likely to condone such an openly discriminatory proposal, and politely refused to discuss the subject with the minister as requested. In April 1961, it was the turn of Turkish Cypriots to bear the brunt of these allegations, with Sir W. Bromley Davenport (Con.) asking David Renton, Joint Under Secretary of State for the Home

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Department, if he was aware ‘that there is increasing resentment over this type of immigrant, who come over to this country and live off the Welfare State, occupy the homes our people so badly need, and celebrate the occasion by occupying our gaols as well’.65

4

The consideration and refutation of welfare parasitism

From the mid-1950s onwards, politicians and civil servants began to scrutinize allegations of welfare parasitism. The outcome was a robust counter-argument: immigrants were not a charge on public funds and they did not make disproportionate social security claims. In contrast to the vague evidence adduced to support the allegation of welfare parasitism, this argument was supported by evidence gathered on National Assistance claims and levels of unemployment. The refutation of welfare parasitism did not lead to an acceptance of immigration, however, but rather a realization that if controls were to be introduced they would have to be justified on non-economic grounds. Colonial immigrants met labour shortages in the British economy, thus arguments for immigration controls were increasingly framed in ‘social’ rather than economic terms. Even in the early 1950s there had been dissent from the view that immigrants were a burden on the public purse. At the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Immigration in January 1951, at which we have already seen it was agreed that the welfare state ‘inevitably acted as a considerable attraction’ to immigrants, the assembled ministers had considered the recent findings of enquiries made by the Ministry of Labour and the National Assistance Board into unemployment among ‘coloured Colonials’. These investigations found that in July 1950 the number of ‘unemployed male coloured Colonials in the main areas where coloured persons live was 1,102’. The corresponding figure for July 1949 was 1,200. Many of these persons were only temporarily unemployed and many did not claim National Assistance. A sample check by the Board during one week in August 1950 found that only 572 such persons applied for assistance. Clearly, this was far from comprehensive data, but the conclusion drawn was that ‘these enquiries do not suggest that unemployment or destitution amongst these new arrivals is sufficiently widespread to have any noticeable effect on our economy’.66 So from an early stage there were discrepancies between available evidence and the tendency to assume that social security was a ‘considerable attraction’ to immigrants, and that they were a public burden. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-1950s that allegations of

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welfare parasitism began to be properly scrutinized and substantial data collected. The Eden Government’s Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants was the first high-level forum in which allegations of welfare parasitism were firmly challenged.67 At its first meeting, a memorandum by the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir, was put before the Committee. It reported that: coloured immigrants have little difficulty in finding work here; they have not made undue demands on National Assistance; they have created no particular problem in regard to the Health Service; they are generally law-abiding; and, except in a few places, their presence has aroused little, if any, public expression of race feeling.68 At the same time, Viscount Kilmuir acknowledged that there was a serious problem in cities such as London and Birmingham, associated with ‘gross overcrowding in insanitary conditions’. From the minutes it would appear that the deliberations were restrained and in general the assembled ministers were notably uncritical, even praising, of colonial immigrants. Of late ‘there had been little public concern’ and any legislation would ‘antagonize liberal and Commonwealth opinion’. In its report to the Cabinet, the Committee concluded that although the housing situation was serious there were no problems significant enough to justify legislation at the present time: ‘the 100,000 or so West Indians who are already in this country have up to the present made a very useful contribution to the labour force’.69 A decision on legislation was deferred, subject to further developments. At the Committee’s third meeting later that year, Iain Macleod, the Minister of Labour, reported that an estimated 7,000 ‘coloured people’ were unemployed. Although this suggested that unemployment for ‘coloured people’ was three or four times the national average this, he argued, could be explained by circumstances: the figure is thought to be attributable partly to the fact that the immigrants take a little time to settle in employment and move initially from job to job, and partly to the fact that they have tended to settle in the motor-car industry and, being relative newcomers, have been among the first to become redundant under the ‘last in – first out’ principle. Only about half of the unemployed coloured workers

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have needed to have recourse to public funds, whether unemployment benefit or national assistance.70 Macleod suggested that those who experienced short-term unemployment, but did not need to resort to public assistance, probably arrived with sufficient funds to tide them over for a short period. Moreover, that only 50 per cent of unemployed immigrants received social security payments ‘indicated that the unemployment figures related mainly to immigrants who were temporarily out of work or who had not yet taken up jobs, and that there was as yet no “hard core” of coloured workers who were chronically unemployed’. In economic terms, ‘the nation had benefited up to the present from the arrival of coloured workers’.71 Altogether, this was a far more positive appraisal of colonial immigrants in the British economy than had been common during the early 1950s; it certainly bore no relation to the welfare scrounger of press lore. If the ‘tide of immigration’ was ‘still running at an uncomfortably high rate’, the discomfort was not based on employment. The Committee’s views belied the stereotypes of welfare parasitism, and no action to control immigration was recommended at the present time. In an attempt to provide more robust evidence on unemployment among immigrants, from 1953 onwards the Ministry of Labour arranged for periodic visual counts at labour exchanges across the country. The results were reported by the Working Party on Coloured Workers72 and are reproduced in Table 4.1. These figures indicate that during the period 1953–60 unemployment among ‘coloured’ immigrants was not especially high in absolute terms, and they also show that there was an approximate correlation with national trends, particularly around 1958–9 when an economic recession caused nationwide redundancies. The report of the Working Party, in which these data are recorded, estimated the total population of ‘coloured workers’ in 1960 to be 250,000, so that, on their own terms, unemployment was approximately 3.6 per cent for this group. Even during the 1958 recession, unemployment of non-white workers did not reach a critical level. Ian Spencer has combined these data with his own estimates of the total non-white population to reach approximate percentages of unemployment (Table 4.2). With the exception of 1958–9, the general trend for 1953–60 is downward. Thus, at a time when the total number of colonial immigrants was increasing, the proportion registered as unemployed was actually decreasing. (Although note that Spencer’s estimates show there was an upturn in unemployment in 1961, which coincided with

‘Coloured Dick Whittingtons in this Land of Socialized Gold’ 101 Table 4.1 Number of unemployed ‘coloured’ workers according to Ministry of Labour special counts, 1953–60 Date of count 15.06.53 14.06.54 24.01.55 18.07.55 04.06.56 03.09.56 11.03.57 02.09.57 17.03.58 28.07.58 03.11.58 17.02.59 05.05.59 04.08.59 03.11.59 02.02.60 03.05.60

Number of ‘coloured workers’ unemployed 3,366 2,462 3,337 2,853 5,203 6,722 7,085 7,566 15,056 17,101 17,276 17,283 13,144 9,656 10,156 9,601 8,537

Source: Adapted from PRO, DO 35/7991, Report of the Working Party, June 1960, Appendix D.

Table 4.2 Estimated percentage of non-white population registered unemployed, 1953–61 Year

Estimated percentage of non-white population registered unemployed*

1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961

9.62 5.47 5.32 4.85 4.59 8.26 5.64 3.69 4.23

* Counts were not made at regular intervals and these estimates are based on different numbers of counts in different years: only one count in 1953 and in 1954; two counts in 1955, 1956, and 1957; three in 1958; four in 1959 and 1960; and three in 1961 Source: I. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939 (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 117.

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a large increase in immigration in the ‘beat the ban’ rush. This may indicate that saturation point had been reached for migrant labour, or it may have been that labour markets could not absorb that year’s unusually high number of entrants quickly enough, but would have done so over time. It is impossible to know what would have occurred had colonial immigration remained unregulated; in any case the unusually high inflow for that year was itself largely produced by rumours of imminent legislation.) These data gave the lie to the claim that colonial immigrants were work-shy and a significant public charge, and they undermined the argument for immigration controls on economic grounds. As David Renton, Joint Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, told Parliament in February 1961, although unemployment among immigrants was higher than the national average (he cited figures of around 5.0 and 1.9 per cent respectively) ‘the vast majority of immigrants are at present in employment, and in certain spheres, for example public transport and the hospital service, they have made a most valuable contribution to our labour force’.73 The Working Party’s figures were discussed at the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants where they were described as a ‘satisfactory trend … in keeping with the general fall in the national figures of unemployed’. There were some complaints of ‘a hard core of unemployed unskilled coloured workers’ with specific reference to ‘Pakistanis and Adenese Arabs who speak little or no English’ and ‘West Indian women, of whom there are now more unemployed than men’.74 Indeed, the Ministry of Labour complained that by May 1960 West Indian women constituted nearly a third of all unemployed colonial immigrants: the majority were without industrial experience and could not be readily absorbed into industry, while others had lost employment through their inability to work at speed. Most regions referred to the slowness of West Indian women. Many of those who recently arrived in London were reported to be illiterate or of low intelligence.75 But despite these objections it was clear that the overall evidence did not support claims of large-scale unemployment among immigrants. In further support of this, the Working Party reported that the number of immigrants in receipt of unemployment benefit or National Assistance had also fallen: from 14,700 in July 1958 to 10,300 in May 1959.76

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This was also borne out by evidence from the National Assistance Board itself. In a memorandum of 24 June 1959 the Board made a clear and unequivocal refutation of allegations of welfare scrounging: There has been much publicity in recent months for coloured people and their problems. It is sometimes said that these immigrants come with the purpose of living on public funds. The Board have no evidence to support that idea. Most of the unemployed (and they are a small proportion of the approximately 200,000 coloured population of this country) seem pathetically anxious to get work. The memorandum went on to acknowledge that although the Board did not keep separate statistics about ‘coloured people’ the recent Ministry of Labour enquiries had shown that unemployment among this group was not unduly high. Furthermore: The Board have no evidence to support the idea that fraud or misrepresentation or unwillingness to work is more common among coloured people than among others. On the whole, they are wellbehaved and straightforward in their dealings with us though, as with white applicants, there are among them the usual small minority of cases of abuse which the Board do not hesitate to bring before the Courts.77 Reports to the contrary were ‘not only exaggerated but perverse’.78 The Board was acutely aware of the harm that such reports caused to relations between immigrants and indigenous Britons. The London (North) Regional Office issued a note to local offices advising them that immigrants in receipt of assistance were of ‘great interest’ to press reporters and asked if they would ‘be good enough to put all your staff on their guard against talking to strangers about their work; a seemingly harmless and trivial remark could easily cause much harm if it gets into the ears of someone who is not too scrupulous’.79 The Board also received several letters from MPs requesting information about unemployment among immigrants, to which it invariably replied that allegations of scrounging and indolence were unfounded.80 With the evidence in, pro-immigrant groups sought to purge the idea that immigrants were a public burden. The West Indies Commission argued that ‘West Indians have played a valuable part in U.K. prosperity … particularly in filling less attractive jobs. … West Indians

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implement Britain’s drive to capture export markets by augmenting the manpower in export industries; they contribute substantially to the maintenance of essential services.’ The Commission asserted that West Indian immigrants ‘are serious in their attempt to find work and there is no truth in the allegation that they come merely to lead an indolent life under the Welfare State’.81 In an article on immigrants, the Economist supported this conclusion, adding that even those immigrants who could not find work served a useful economic purpose: Economically there is not the slightest doubt that Britain is aided by this influx of active workers. They take up some of the less pleasant jobs that Britons have left unfilled, and are also certainly saving some Britons from unemployment. Nobody can tell what pool of mobile unemployed is needed in Britain if we are to run a flexible economy; but the West Indians are clearly bearing some of the burden of filling that pool which would otherwise have to be borne by whites.82 Far from immigrants creating a burden, according to the Economist they themselves bore one. In sum, those with the most experience and best understanding of immigrants’ position in the British economy would have concurred with the succinct opinion of one NAB official: ‘very few immigrants indeed are work-shy’.83 As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, it was during 1961 that the balance of opinion among ministers tipped in favour of legislative action to control immigration. It is crucial to stress that this shift of opinion was motivated by non-economic arguments. During a series of four meetings that year, the Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee considered the employment situation and came to some unequivocal conclusions. In the second, third and fourth meetings it was made apparent that control did not have an economic rationale: immigrants did not constitute a public charge, on the contrary, they were beneficial to Britain’s labour markets. In spite of this, restriction of immigration was to go ahead on the basis of ‘social considerations’. Admittedly, at the first meeting of the year in February the situation was somewhat different. Concern was expressed at the high level of unemployment among West Indians during 1960 (an estimated 5 per cent of the West Indian workforce were unemployed in November 1960 compared with a national average of 1.6 per cent), and a Working

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Party reported that according to the Birmingham police ‘the immigrants now coming in are of a lower standard than formerly, and not so industrious or adaptable’.84 The Working Party also argued that if numbers continued at the current level ‘it would seem very improbable that the employment market could go on absorbing such an influx of labour that is so largely unskilled’. But by the Committee’s second meeting of the year, in May, the tone had changed. It was felt that immigrant unemployment ‘had, if anything, fallen in recent months’, although there were still concerns about the deteriorating ‘quality’ of new arrivals. Nevertheless, immigration controls were deemed to be necessary, and a labour voucher scheme was settled upon as the most practicable method of control. That a labour based scheme was chosen should not be understood as an indication that labour markets were in need of protection. The extensive report by the Working Party presented to the third meeting of the committee in July was quite explicit about this: a case for control of immigration rests not on grounds of employment, crime or health, but on the strain imposed by coloured immigrants on the housing resources of certain local authorities and the dangers of social tension inherent in the existence of large unassimilated coloured communities. Furthermore: There is not at present a case for restriction on employment grounds; indeed the immigrants are a useful addition to the labour force. They are not in general work-shy, few remain on national assistance for any length of time, and most find work.85 During the meeting the Home Secretary insisted that ‘we must recognize that reference to employment would be the means of controlling immigration and not the grounds for doing so’.86 The Lord Chancellor went further than this, pointing out that the Treasury thought controls would be detrimental to the British economy: ‘imposition of any substantial control of immigration from the Commonwealth … would damage the economy since immigration even of unskilled workers was to our general economic advantage’. Sir Edward Boyle, Financial Secretary at the Treasury, was opposed to any form of control, and had his dissent recorded in the minutes. He ‘was not persuaded of the necessity for doing so on social grounds, and

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thought that the economic advantage of the present level was overriding’.87 Thus, despite the choice of a labour voucher scheme, the decision to restrict colonial immigration was not motivated by economic factors – neither unemployment nor National Assistance claims gave cause for concern. It was a decision based upon ‘the wider problem of social tension, and that in turn was essentially a problem of colour’. The minutes of the July meeting are unequivocal: ‘the case for legislative restriction of this immigration is not economic but social’.88 The argument had come full circle, in that a migration previously opposed because it was believed to be detrimental to the British economy was now recognized as economically beneficial; restriction was implemented not because of economic arguments, but in spite of them. The ‘danger of social tension’ trumped ‘general economic advantage’ and potentially ‘unfavourable reactions to control in coloured Commonwealth countries and elsewhere’. The fourth meeting of the Committee in September largely consolidated the decisions reached earlier that summer. Another report from the Working Party was considered, in which an increase in numbers was reported, but it was argued that ‘despite this enormous influx it remains true that there is remarkably little unemployment amongst the immigrants’.89 In the meantime Jamaica had withdrawn from the proposed West Indies Federation, completely undermining the whole project, so one major constraint of Commonwealth realpolitik had been removed. The ‘economic advantages’ of colonial labour remained, but the balance between ‘social’ and ‘economic’ considerations had tipped. In terms that recall the inseparability of numbers and assimilation discussed in the previous chapter, it was agreed that: despite the political controversy which would undoubtedly arise, the introduction of legislation was indeed a sad necessity. …[T]he present level [of immigration] was too high for successful assimilation. In consequence a number of social problems had accumulated to produce a difficult situation. The strain on housing authorities and the health service had continued, and there was a general feeling in the country that too many coloured persons were settling here.90 It was both misleading and ironic that the Government introduced an immigration bill centred on a labour voucher scheme, but with a primarily non-economic rationale.

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5 Welfare parasitism after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 The creation of a labour-based scheme for immigration control did not put an end to claims that immigrants were a burden on public funds. CIA 1962 restricted access to the United Kingdom, but it did not impact upon the entitlements of those immigrants who were admitted, nor those already resident in Britain. Anyone admitted either with a voucher or as a dependant would qualify for assistance if needed. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that once CIA 1962 was fully operational, allegations of welfare parasitism continued in some newspapers. In July 1962, the News of the World railed: ‘Vice Men Get Our Money’ and reported how every week tax-payers’ money was given out to the ‘scum of society – vice operators and prostitutes’. Of the six examples given of these ‘parasites’ two were singled out and identified as a Jamaican living in Nottingham and a West Indian living in Bristol. The former allegedly ‘drove to the Assistance Board’s office in a taxi’, whilst the latter ‘spent his time going to parties and dances [and] idling in cafes’.91 Later the same year the Bedford Record ran a story with the headline ‘£500 a Week Paid to Immigrants. No Apparent Interest in Helping Themselves’.92 It complained that ‘150 single out-of-work Pakistani and Indian men’ were drawing about £500 a week in National Assistance, and found it ‘disheartening’ that not one had enrolled for specially organized English classes. The most implacable Parliamentary opponents of immigration were also unsatisfied with the limits put on entry to the United Kingdom by CIA 1962, and called for further restrictions. In February 1962, Norman Pannell asked for information on the number of immigrants who were unemployed, and four months later, once CIA 1962 was in force, he demanded an immediate cessation of all immigration ‘until all United Kingdom citizens have got jobs’.93 In 1968, in the midst of the Kenyan Asians crisis, James Callaghan recalls how newspapers carried ‘lurid and exaggerated accounts of how homeless families were drawing lavish assistance from the Social Services’.94 If such claims were not extinguished, they were blunted, and as the 1960s unfolded the immigration debate shifted onto different terrain. Arguments for further immigration controls focused on housing, integration, social tensions and public health. The 1965 White Paper reported that ‘the great majority of immigrants are fully employed, working in a wide range of occupations in many industries’.95 Furthermore, ‘the United Kingdom is already a multiracial

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society and Commonwealth immigrants make a most valuable contribution to our economy’. The ‘problems’ were not economic, but ‘social and cultural’ which gave rise to ‘various social tensions’ (pressures on housing and overcrowding, educational difficulties associated with language, discrimination by employers and employees, and the ‘heavy burden’ on the health services were identified in the White Paper as areas of major concern).96 Three years after the imposition of immigration controls, then, the locus of argument had shifted from protecting the British economy to ensuring the integration of those immigrants already settled in the country. In 1967 an investigation into the economic impact of immigration by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) comprehensively demolished the charge that immigrants were a public burden. Part of the NIESR study, ‘Immigrants and the Social Services’, compared per capita expenditure on immigrants with per capita expenditure on the population as a whole in three areas: (i) health and welfare, (ii) education and child care, and (iii) National Insurance and Assistance benefits. Only in category (ii) was per capita expenditure higher for immigrants than for the total population (£13.9 compared with £12.1). In category (i) the expenditure was £17.4 for immigrants compared with £18.6 for the population as a whole, and in category (iii) it was £17.4 for immigrants and £31.7 for the population as a whole. Overall, the average immigrant received about 20 per cent less in social services spending than the average member of the population. The study also concluded that the per capita contribution of immigrants was almost certainly higher than that of the general population, ‘simply because non-contributors are a relatively small part of the immigrant population’.97 The age-structure of the immigrant population explained the differentials: a larger proportion of the immigrants were young working adults while a much smaller proportion were elderly non-contributors. In response to this report, which received wide coverage, parts of the national press recanted on the discourse of welfare parasitism. For example, The Times reported the study’s findings in a straightforwardly titled story: ‘Immigrants costing less’.98 Shortly after the NIESR research was published the Home Office undertook its own investigations based on census data, statistics from the Ministry of Health and the Office of Health Economics, and the NIESR estimates (Table 4.3). Once again, the central finding was that immigrants cost less per capita, on average, than the population as a whole.

‘Coloured Dick Whittingtons in this Land of Socialized Gold’ 109 Table 4.3

Cost of health and welfare services in England and Wales, 1961–2

Age group 0–14

15–64

65+

Total

Total population Total cost (£m) Cost per head (£) Percentage population Percentage cost

214.6 20.2 23.1 25.3

421.2 14.0 65.0 49.4

216.3 39.3 11.9 25.3

852.1 18.5 100.0 100.0

Immigrant population* Total cost (£m) Cost per head (£) Percentage population Percentage cost

1.9 21.2 28.2 37.6

2.9 13.2 69.3 57.5

0.2 31.4 2.5 4.7

5.1 15.9 100.0 100.0

Note: Percentages are all rounded to 1 d.p. * Includes immigrants from the British Caribbean, India, Pakistan, Africa, Cyprus and Malta resident in the conurbations. Includes children born in England and Wales as well as those born abroad. Source: PRO, HO 344/311, Official Committee on Commonwealth Immigration: Economic Implications of Immigration, 1966–7.

The Home Secretary suggested that MPs should make reference to this and the NIESR research in replies to constituents’ letters on immigration. A memorandum to MPs suggested the following response: immigrants from the ‘new Commonwealth’ do not, as is often supposed, make disproportionately heavy demands on our health, education and social welfare services – quite the reverse. As a result of the age structure of the immigrant community, it appears that they probably contribute more and receive less than the average member of the population as a whole.99 Although a consensus of policy-makers and experts now refuted allegations of welfare-scrounging, discrimination against immigrants persisted at the level of welfare provision. Steve Cohen argues that anti-immigrant sentiment continued to govern the delivery of welfare benefits throughout the 1960s (and beyond). For example, he points out that although the 1966 Supplementary Benefit Act (which replaced National Assistance) made no distinction between aliens, immigrants, and native-born citizens, a secret document was issued to benefit officers instructing them how to act. The so-called ‘A-Code’ contained a section on ‘Aliens and immigrants’ which stated that benefits should be denied to ‘people admitted to this country by the immigration

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authorities on the specific understanding that they will not become a charge on public funds’.100 At the political level as well, the issue of welfare provision for immigrants certainly did not disappear after 1962. Introducing the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill to Parliament in 1968, James Callaghan made reference to the ‘pressures on the social services which arise from the differences in language and cultural background’ of immigrants.101 Thus, although allegations of welfare scrounging no longer played as prominent a role in immigration politics as they had done in the 1950s – partly because of the establishment of immigration controls, partly because evidence had undermined the allegations – and despite the Macmillan Government having made explicit the non-economic rationale behind CIA 1962, the link between immigration and welfare parasitism was not entirely broken. And the link continues to this day. Indeed, allegations of welfare parasitism have never really gone away, as recent representations of ‘bogus’ asylum seekers demonstrate.102 Echoing the claims made about immigrants in the 1950s, today it is commonly alleged that many asylum seekers are attracted to Britain by generous social security benefits and an interminable appeals procedure. The Labour Government’s ‘streamlining’ of the appeals process and introduction of the notorious voucher scheme in the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act, followed by its removal of welfare provision for asylum seekers who fail to claim asylum within 72 hours of arrival in the country under the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, were responses to such claims. I shall return to these and other issues in the recent politics of immigration and welfare in Chapter 7.

5 ‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation

1

Introduction

In recent years attitudes towards intimate relations between members of different ethnic groups have changed significantly. An ICM poll, reported in the Observer newspaper in November 2001, found 82 per cent of respondents in agreement with the statement: ‘It would not bother me if a member of my family married someone from a different ethnic background’.1 The previous year an ICM poll for the Guardian had reported that 53 per cent of whites claimed they would not mind if a close relative married a black or Asian person, while 36 per cent said they would mind ‘a little or a lot’. And a similar poll made in 1995 had found only 21 per cent responding that they ‘would not mind’ and 73 per cent that they would mind ‘a little or a lot’.2 Thus, in only six years the number of Britons expressing discomfort with mixed marriages fell from around 3 in 4 to 1 in 5.3 Not only have attitudes shifted, behaviour has also changed. Today, Britain has the highest rate of interracial relationships in Europe, ten times the continental average, and one of the highest anywhere in the world.4 Perhaps this relaxation of taboos explains why interracial sexual relations and the supposed threat of miscegenation have hardly figured in recent academic writing on post-war immigration to Britain. Certainly, these issues have been almost wholly excluded from the purview of debate.5 This is a significant lacuna in our understanding, for interracial sexual relations have been the source of controversy, antipathy, and even violence during the last fifty years in Britain; and hostility towards miscegenation has shaped responses to colonial immigration at the social and political level. 111

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Maintaining the colour line Before addressing the British case, it is worth pausing to ask why interracial sexual relations and miscegenation have engendered so much antipathy in general.6 A simple, yet plausible, response is that interracial sexual relations threaten to undermine racialized thinking. As the children of mixed relationships cannot be neatly fitted into racial categories, miscegenation presents a challenge to the very idea of distinct, separable races.7 Paul Baxter and Basil Sansom have described this as follows: cross-breeding must lead to ambiguity in any social calculus of race. Races are defined by sets of physical characteristics attributed to their members and interracial mating brings the very bodies that carry the substance of difference into the intimacy of physical contact. Hence, racial boundaries cannot be maintained without taboos that govern sexual and marital relations.8 In order for races to exist as distinct categories – ‘black’, ‘white’, and so on – to which physical, intellectual and moral capacities can be attributed, the phenotypical boundaries of race (above all, skin colour) must not become too blurred at the edges. Miscegenation threatens to enact such a blurring, and thereby unravel the whole canvas upon which race (and racism) are drawn. Other arguments against miscegenation, such as that interracial sexual relations are immoral or that children of mixed relationships are born somehow inferior to either or both of their parents, are basically derivatives of this fundamental opposition to boundary transgressions.9 Inevitably, those who propound racist ideas oppose intermixing of the races they discern. This can be seen most clearly in countries where racism has been enshrined in legislation. In South Africa, sexual contact between whites and blacks was made illegal by the Immorality Act of 1950, one of the first pieces of apartheid legislation.10 Similarly, in many southern states of America during the late nineteenth century, and often lasting well into the twentieth century, Jim Crow legislation prohibited interracial unions and intermarriage.11 If, then, social taboos and occasionally legal prohibitions against interracial sexual relations are integral to racism in general, this is because the prevention of widespread miscegenation is the sine qua non of the idea of race. For race to be unproblematic, a term that refers to unambiguously distinct and separable groups, those groups must not produce children of mixed backgrounds. Indeed, until quite recently

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many anthropologists used the term ‘race’ precisely to refer to distinct breeding groups. For example, in a 1963 text published to accompany an exhibit on the ‘Races of Man’ at the British Museum of Natural History, Sonia Cole claimed that ‘different races arose through the isolation of groups by geographic or social barriers which prevented interbreeding with other groups’.12 This chapter addresses one instance in which ‘geographic barriers to interbreeding’ fell as a result of immigration, while ‘social barriers’ remained very much in place. Men without women Colonial immigration to Britain in the post-war years was predominantly male. Although not an unusual characteristic of migrant flows, the gender imbalance was considered to be highly significant by contemporary observers. Until 1962 there were 1,548 male for every 1,000 female immigrants from the New Commonwealth, and this includes a probable decline in the male predominance during the second half of the 1950s. It was only following the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act (CIA 1962), after which dependants made up an increased proportion of migrants, that the gender ratio really began to even out: by 1966 there were 1,384 male for every 1,000 female migrants. When one considers the widespread hostility towards interracial sexual relations among the British public at this time, especially relations between black men and white women, it is not difficult to see how a combustible situation arose. Lurid newspaper reports about the ‘men without women’ did nothing to ease the situation, and occasionally tensions boiled over into outbreaks of racist violence. Colonial immigrants, particularly black males, were portrayed as sexual predators, and miscegenation was held as a threat to the ‘British stock’. The challenge to sexual morality and social order was made concrete in reports about immigrants’ involvement in prostitution and pimping, the crime of ‘living on immoral earnings’. Paradoxically, whilst many commentators insisted on the need for the assimilation of immigrants, nearly all resisted the most obvious and permanent means to this end: interbreeding. For most people assimilation stopped well short of intimate relations or intermarriage between migrants and the host population. Another striking feature of these attitudes is that they appear to have traversed social classes.13 Opposition towards interracial sexual relations could be found throughout the class structure, from the everyday discourse of working class youths to policy debates conducted by politicians and civil servants. If the tone varied in different social classes, the underlying discomfort rarely did.

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This chapter assesses the importance of these attitudes for the politics of immigration. Section 2 addresses two important precursors to the post-war situation: sexual relations in the colonies and the presence of black GIs in Britain during the Second World War. A consideration of these historical cases is instructive both for the way in which they influenced post-war attitudes and behaviour, and for their differences with the later period. Sections 3 and 4 focus on social attitudes and behaviour during the 1950s, when the uneven gender ratio was most acute, whilst Section 5 turns to consider the implications of the gender imbalance for policy decisions. I show that politicians wished to redress the uneven male:female ratio, and I argue that the decision to exempt dependants from immigration controls was informed by this desire. Although other factors also influenced the policy towards dependants, redress of the gender imbalance was an important consideration, and a more balanced migrant population was certainly viewed as a positive consequence of the dependants clause of CIA 1962.

2 Precursors: black and Asian sexuality from colonialism to wartime Britain Negative and fetishistic images of black and Asian sexuality have a long history.14 At least as far back as early Christianity the colour black has been associated with evil, and blackness has figured as a metaphor for debasement, defilement and degeneration. In his classic text, The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois referred to this phenomenon as an ‘all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black’.15 To give just two examples from everyday language: we speak of someone’s reputation having been ‘blackened’ or of a ‘black period’ in a nation’s history. Frantz Fanon argued for the pervasiveness and power of this diction in European culture: In Europe, the Black man is the symbol of Evil. … The torturer is the Black man, Satan is Black, one talks of shadows, when one is dirty one is black – whether one is thinking of physical dirtiness or moral dirtiness. It would be astonishing, if the trouble were taken to bring them all together, to see the vast number of expressions that make the Black man the equivalent of sin. In Europe, whether concretely or symbolically, the Black man stands for the bad side of the character. As long as one cannot understand this fact, one is doomed to talk in circles about the ‘black problem’. Blackness, darkness, shadows, shade, night, the labyrinths of the earth, abysmal depths,

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blacken someone’s reputation; and on the other side, the bright look of innocence, the white dove of peace, magical heavenly light.16 The identification of blackness with evil and sin is also manifested in the association of blackness with sexual debauchery: black people have often been depicted as hypersexual beings unconstrained by the mores of civilization and capable of acting only upon their ungodly libidinal drives. For example, in his influential History of Jamaica, written in 1774, Edward Long wrote that ‘negroes are void of genius, and seem almost incapable of making any progress in civility or science. – They have no plan or system of morality among them. … They have no moral sensations; no taste but for women, gourmandising, and drinking to excess; no wish but to be idle.’17 Long abhorred miscegenation, considering it ‘a venomous and dangerous ulcer that threatens to disperse its malignancy far and wide, until every family catches infection from it’. At the same time, he claimed that it was mostly degraded or degenerate white women who were attracted to black men: ‘The lower order of women are remarkably fond of the blacks for reasons too brutal to mention.’18 The association of blackness with transgressive sexuality may originate in the Biblical curse of Ham, wherein Ham, son of Noah, is punished with dark-skinned offspring for looking upon his sleeping father’s nakedness.19 In contrast, perceptions of Asian sexuality have arguably been more complicated, turning upon ideas of the East as dreamlike, effeminate and exotic.20 There can be little doubt that stereotypes of non-white people as hypersexual, immoral or exotically alluring have figured centrally in European representations of colonized peoples. In the colonial context, intimate relations between colonizer and colonized did not give rise to the same kind of opposition as such relations would in post-war Britain. Interracial sex may have raised spectres of racial impurity and cultural hybridity, but it was typically treated with polite social disdain rather than odium. Two important differences between colonial and post-colonial circumstances help explain this: geography and gender. First, relations occurring far from the metropole in the imperial hinterland did not directly threaten to pollute or contaminate the British ‘stock’. Miscegenation was quite literally peripheral. In post-war Britain, when interracial encounters began to take place ‘at home’, the fear of moral and physical pollution was palpable, immediate and potentially enduring. Moreover, the children of these unions would grow up in Britain, not in some remote

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clime whose decadence could be written off by virtue of its geographical remove.21 Second, and even more important, was the gender dimension. Whereas most interracial relations in the colonial context were between white men and black or Asian women, the interactions brought about by post-war migration were largely between black men and white women. This inversion is critical. Male colonialists’ sexual interaction with black and Asian women was generally viewed as a source of illicit sexual pleasure, and the coercive nature of many of these relations served to reinforce unequal power relations between colonizer and colonized. In contrast to this, relations between black men and white women in post-war Britain upset established hierarchies of race and gender. Miscegenation presented a threat to white patriarchy as well as racial hierarchy.22 A more immediate, and in some ways more readily comparable, precursor to the debate about interracial sexual relations in post-war Britain occurred as a result of the stationing of black American soldiers in England and Wales between 1942 and 1945. At the beginning of the war there were approximately 8,000–10,000 non-white people living in Britain, mostly concentrated in the cities of Liverpool, Cardiff, Newcastle and Sheffield. In comparison to the United States, where African-Americans made up 10 per cent of the population, Britain was an homogenous country. At the outset of the US Army’s mass movement of troops to Britain, AfricanAmericans comprised only a small percentage of the total. In May 1942 there were only 811 black GIs (under 7 per cent of the total US presence) mostly employed in Services of Supply (SOS). By the end of 1942, that number had grown to 7,315; by the end of 1943, to 65,000; and by the time of the D-Day preparations there were roughly 130,000 black GIs in Britain.23 It must be remembered that the US Army was segregated throughout the war, and mixed marriages were illegal in 30 out of 48 American states at this time. White American soldiers, including the most senior officers, were openly hostile to interracial relations. General William A. Weaver, SOS Chief of Staff for the US Army, opposed interracial relations on the grounds that ‘such unions would make the blood of offspring impure’. 24 Fearing social problems, the British Government was initially against black troops being stationed on its soil, but was eventually forced to acquiesce with the deployment as both American pressure and the need for soldiers grew.25 The British were undoubtedly in a difficult situation: they did not want to be seen to condone the US Army’s segregation policy for fear of upsetting colonial allies – Sir Harry Haig

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referred to the American policy as ‘political dynamite for ourselves in most parts of the Colonial Empire’26 – but they were neither able nor willing to oppose the Americans. In the end, the Coalition Government adopted a generally laissez-faire approach, hoping to avoid charges of supporting a ‘colour bar’ while at the same time allowing US Army segregation to go unopposed.27 Despite these official concerns, it has been argued that black GIs were generally well received by British civilians. In his book, When Jim Crow Met John Bull, Graham Smith claims that on the whole ‘blacks were warmly welcomed in Britain, and the action of the white Americans in furthering a colour bar was roundly condemned’.28 Indeed, on several occasions British civilians actually took the side of black Americans in conflicts with their white compatriots over relations with local white women. For example, when fights broke out between black GIs and white paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division in Leicester during 1944, locals sided with the black Americans.29 If Smith is correct, how can the relative lack of popular hostility towards interracial sexual relations during the war be explained? I suggest that there were a number of factors that account for the apparent tolerance during, as compared with after, the war. Firstly, unlike post-war immigrants, the GIs’ presence was temporary and they did not have the potential to alter permanently the racial demography of British society. Secondly, although the GIs were ‘over here’, they were so because they were fighting with ‘us’, and in times of great abnormality. The suspension of normal civilian life must have eased the acceptance of novelty, and this was helped by the existence of a common enemy and shared purpose. Thirdly, as black GIs were often badly treated by their white compatriots, who caused no little resentment among Britons anyway because they were widely perceived to be arrogant and overpaid, they seemed to have engendered a high level of sympathy. A Mass Observation survey taken during the war concluded that ‘on the Colour Question as a whole majority view is that the treatment of Negroes in America is not satisfactory’.30 Finally, and most importantly, the demographic composition of Britain during wartime was very peculiar, in terms of both gender and age-distribution. The social group most hostile to interracial sexual relations after the war – young working-class males – were largely absent from the wartime population. Hence, it was not that white Britons suddenly became more antipathetic towards interracial sexual relations after 1945, but rather that a set of factors were at work during the war to mitigate hostile attitudes.

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3 ‘Irregular unions’: the gender imbalance and British attitudes to interracial sexual relations Gender ratios E. J. B. Rose’s groundbreaking 1969 report for the Institute of Race Relations, Colour and Citizenship, provides some robust data on the gender ratio of a range of immigrant groups in England and Wales in the 1960s (Table 5.1). From Rose’s data we can see that the ratio for non-white immigrants (‘All coloured’) in 1961 was just over 3 males for every 2 females; by 1966 it was nearer 4 to 3. From 1961 to 1966, then, the proportion of male immigrants declined. This was especially true of immigrants from the Caribbean, of whom there were more women than men arriving between 1961 and 1966, so that by 1966 the number of males and females in this group was almost balanced. The imbalance was most marked among Pakistanis, both in 1961 and 1966, though here too there was some movement towards equilibrium.31 The evening out of the gender ratios in 1961–6 reflected the shift from primary immigrants to dependants after 1962, a point to which I return below. Despite these changes, the most striking feature of these data is that the gender ratio of colonial immigrants contrasted with the slight predominance of females among the indigenous population. It also contrasted with the predominance of females among Irish immigrants. This unusual aspect of Irish immigration stretched back at least as far as the inter-war period. R. E. Kennedy has estimated that the ratio of male to female emigrants from the Irish Free State in the first half of the 1920s was 8:10,32 and data from the Irish Commission Table 5.1

Males per 1,000 females in England and Wales, 1961 and 1966

Area of origin India Pakistan Jamaica Other Caribbean British West Africa All coloured Cyprus Ireland Total population of England and Wales

At 1961

Arrivals 1961–6

At 1966

1,568 5,380 1,258 1,264 1,949 1,548 1,273 925

1,373 3,541 773 809 1,452 1,279 1,016 234

1,479 4,231 1,066 1,026 1,614 1,384 1,191 912

937

940

Source: E. J. B. Rose, Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 105.

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on Emigration shows that during the later 1920s and into the 1930s females outnumbered male migrants to Britain.33 Post-war ratios were similar, although the data is less reliable after July 1946, when Irish regulation of migration between the two countries was repealed. By the 1960s, more robust figures were available, and they showed that females remained predominant. Rose’s data reported in Table 5.1 show that in 1961 there were 925 male per 1,000 female Irish immigrants in England and Wales; by 1966, the figures were 912 males per 1,000 females. This is supported by the net emigration statistics that were recorded by the Irish Commission on Emigration: the gender ratio of net emigration from Ireland during the period 1946–56 was 9:10, for 1956–61 it was 10:9, and during the 1960s it returned to approximately 9:10.34 The slight predominance of females and, above all, the fact that Irish immigrants were perceived as a ‘white race’ meant that Irish immigration was hardly ever represented as a sexual threat in British popular culture. In fact, the locus of concern was inverted. Whereas the predominance of males among colonial immigrants generated a sense of moral panic in the receiving society, the gender ratio of Irish emigrants gave rise to Irish concern about the moral implications of the large number of women emigrating. This was compounded by the significant influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish political affairs, plus the fact that most Irish women were migrating from rural areas (particularly the west and north-west of Ireland) to urban conurbations in Britain. The idea that country-folk were not equipped to deal with the malaise of urban living is palpable in many Irish discussions of ‘moral danger’ from this time.35 British attitudes to interracial sexual relations Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the majority of the British population were strongly opposed to interracial sexual relations. Although the public opinion polls relate to mixed marriages, when this is combined with evidence from other sources it is clear that hostility extended to intimate relations in general. In a Gallup poll taken in September 1958, 71 per cent of respondents expressed disapproval of mixed marriages, only 13 per cent approved, and 16 per cent were undecided. The previous year, a survey of 1,000 people in Birmingham asked: ‘Do you favour mixed marriages?’ 98 per cent of respondents replied negatively.36 This contrasted with a greater level of tolerance for interracial social relations in other spheres. For example, asked if ‘coloured people coming to live next door would make you move home’, 9 per cent responded ‘yes definitely’, 21 per

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cent said ‘might do’, and 70 per cent ‘no’; asked if ‘coloured people should be allowed to compete for jobs on equal terms’, 48 per cent said ‘yes’, 37 per cent ‘no’, and 15 per cent ‘don’t know’; and asked ‘would you object if there were coloured children in the same class as your children at school’, 7 per cent said they ‘would’, 81 per cent ‘would not’, and 12 per cent said they ‘didn’t know’.37 It would seem, then, that interracial sexual relations were more widely opposed than other forms of intermixing. By May 1961 this had not shifted much: the figures for disapproval, approval, and indecision on mixed marriages were 68, 7, and 25 per cent respectively. Reflecting on these data in her 1963 book, Dark Strangers: A Study of West Indians in London, Sheila Patterson concluded that ‘there is little doubt about the existence of this aversion to intermarriage or miscegenation among a large section of the British population’.38 By 1964 this aversion was still in evidence. Asked how they would feel having a ‘coloured’ person as their son or daughter-in-law, 44 per cent of British people responded that they would ‘strongly dislike’ it, 27 per cent would ‘rather not’, 13 per cent would ‘not mind’, 2 per cent said they would be ‘pleased’ and 14 per cent replied ‘don’t know’.39 The prevalence of such attitudes was often noted in contemporary academic literature. Indeed, nearly all of the major studies on racism or immigration published in Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s devote considerable attention to interracial sexual relations. In his early study, The Coloured Quarter, first published in 1955, Michael Banton devoted an entire chapter to intermarriage. 40 Similarly, Anthony Richmond, a lecturer in Social Theory at the University of Edinburgh, placed stereotypes about ‘Negro sexuality’ at the heart of his diagnosis of race relations in Britain. Arguing that ‘it is not a lack of correct information about the colonies and their inhabitants which serves to aggravate racial relations in Britain, so much as the completely wrong ideas that are widely held’, Richmond tabulated six different groups of ‘false stereotypes’ held by both black and white people about each other, relating to religion, civilization, education, economic strength, habitat, and sexuality. Regarding the last, he claimed that many people in Britain believe … [that] … Coloured colonials have strong sexual urges: Coloured men are less sexually inhibited and capable of giving greater sexual satisfaction than white men. Once having had relations with a coloured man a white woman will not be interested in white men.

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And furthermore: many coloured colonials believe … [that] … White women are strongly attracted by coloured men: Women who express the strongest opposition to others who ‘go out’ with coloured men, are the ones who most desire their attentions.41 The popular press exhibited by turns a prurient fascination and a sense of moral outrage towards interracial sexual relations. In 1954, the Daily Sketch, a conservative tabloid with a mostly middle class readership, ran a series of articles on immigrants and their relations with white Britons. The first of these articles, ‘Men Without Women’, posed the question ‘can black mix with white in Britain?’ Candidus, the newspaper’s social commentator, reported on 500 newly arrived West Indians in the following terms: Mostly they are men without money. But there is a much more primitive lack. THEY ARE MEN WITHOUT WOMEN. There were only 20 women among the 500. That means four per cent. That again means that 92 per cent of the men are surplus in the matrimonial way. They will have no chance of finding a partner of their own race. But a lot of them will find a partner all the same. A white partner. Some of them will find two. I don’t think any psychologist would deny that sexual antagonism is a powerful element in racial antagonism. Perhaps it is even the fundamental element. And this inter-racial mingling is the most dangerous of the explosives that are spread on the ground.42 Candidus went on to claim that although many white men and women find ‘the Negro repellent’, some white women ‘find him more attractive than the white [man]’. These women were not exclusively, as was sometimes claimed, of low class or social standing: ‘there are good types as well as doubtful types among the women who accept these white and coloured unions’. Asking an ‘African’ what he feels about dating white women is pointless: ‘to be honest, there is no point asking the average African anything except the time of day. It is not that he will try to deceive, but just that your mind and his mind are cogs that don’t fit’.43 The articles continued the following week, and whilst they did not repeat the explicitly sexual elements of the previous week’s article, there were sexual undertones. Monday’s article on the ‘Colour Bar’ was

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accompanied by a picture showing a black man dancing with a white woman. The caption below read: ‘The dance hall is often the meeting ground for white and black – in this case at Liverpool.’ The main story accused immigrants of being paranoid, over-sensitive, and obsessed with their grievances: ‘You might say they have made an obsession of COLOUR. I would go further and say they are making a profession of it. It is an excuse for everything, it is their standing in life.’ Immigrants ‘live by exposing their grievances as medieval beggars live by exposing their sores’.44 The third article in the series was entitled ‘Are black & white equal?’ and this time the picture was of a ‘Negro baby’. It reported how the ‘coloured woman’ often refused ante-natal care because ‘she has her own ancestral ideas on these things and she will go her own ancestral way. We must face the difficulty that many of those who are equal under the law are far from equal in education, mental or even moral development.’ The following week, the Sketch ran an article on readers’ responses to the Candidus series. One reader insisted that ‘we know most of the folk now coming in monthly by the boat-load come here for one reason only – EASY STREET’, and claimed that they head straight for Public Assistance. Other letters complained of the ‘invasion’ and the threat of unemployment. One of the more astute comments read: ‘Before any man can honestly say he does not believe there is a colour bar, let him ask himself, would I like my own daughter to marry a coloured man, and would I welcome her coloured husband in my home?’45 If the Daily Sketch series was unusual for the extremity of its racism, interest in interracial sexual relations was far from uncommon. Indeed, the union of black men with white women, and, less frequently, white men with black women, was apparently a newsworthy subject in and of itself. For example, in July 1953, Peggy Cripps, daughter of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, married Joseph Appiah, an African student, which drew significant attention from various parts of the media. In addition to newspaper coverage, a British Paramount Newsreel entitled ‘Peggy Cripps Weds Gold Coast Student’ recorded their marriage in St John’s Wood, London.46 Although this fascination with interracial sexual relations was concentrated in the popular media, more high-brow publications also carried the occasional story. For example, in an article in The Times about the growing drug problem in Britain, the moral dangers of interracial sex were discussed. The article identified ‘Indian hemp’ as the most commonly used illegal substance, and reported that seven out of eight of those convicted for ‘unlawful possession of dangerous drugs’ were

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West Indians. The article claimed that the authorities’ greatest concern was the possibility of drug use spreading amongst ‘irresponsible young white people’, in particular, white ‘girls’ who were ‘friendly’ with West Indians. Apparently, the ‘potential moral problem’ was clear, as white women were often ‘enticed into hemp smoking’ by lascivious black men: ‘a principal motive of the coloured man in smoking hemp’ was to ‘stimulate his sexual desires’. Unlike Chinese opium smoking before the war, which had never become an ‘evil that might easily spread among the white population’, the chief danger of black males smoking hemp was that they might deprave young white women.47 Furthermore, in both literature and film depicting immigrants’ experiences during the 1950s, sex was a frequent theme. One novel from the period, John Moore’s The White Sparrow, was entirely written around the theme of interracial sex. The novel’s protagonist, Tommy Debrett, is a child of mixed parentage, and through his experiences Moore explores contemporary attitudes towards miscegenation.48 Perhaps the most well known novel which addressed intimate relations between black and white people was Colin MacInnes’ City of Spades. Published in the year before riots broke out in Notting Hill, and set in London, the book recounts the relationship between Johnny Macdonald Fortune, a Nigerian student, Montgomery Pew, an Assistant Welfare Officer at the Colonial Office, and Theodora Pace, a young middle-class woman who works at the BBC. The topics of interracial sex and ‘half-castes’ recur throughout the novel. Indeed, in City of Spades we find a fictional corollary to the allegations made in The Times article on hemp. The significantly-named Police Inspector Purity describes to Pew how a central aspect of the ‘colour problem’ was drug peddling and usage. ‘Dope’ he claims, is ‘corrupting young girls’ to ‘serve these black men’s evil ends’. Theodora Pace also expresses the view that these men have nefarious, predatory aims lurking behind all of their attempts at social interaction with white women: ‘What’s clear to me now … is that love, or even friendship, for these people is impossible – I mean as we understand it’.49 This idea that black men were incapable of family life, of a normalized domesticity, was the flip side of the stereotype of sexual predation. Occasionally, journalists sought to address interracial relations without resorting to stereotypes or sensationalism. In October 1954, in a special issue on marriage, the popular weekly pictorial magazine Picture Post ran an article asking ‘Would you let your daughter marry a Negro?’ It began by recounting typical attitudes towards mixed

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couples, and argued, quite perceptively, that the issue of interracial sexual relations was where ‘many a liberal-minded politician finds his politics peel raw’.50 Echoing the Gallup poll data cited above, the article pointed out that for many Britons accepting non-white immigrants in housing, employment and education was one thing, ‘but in the name of decency and the pure white race, don’t marry him’. As Peter Griffiths pointed out in his 1966 book, A Question of Colour?, ‘even people professing liberal views on immigration and race-relations object to miscegenation’.51 In a passage that recalls Fanon’s analysis of images of blackness, Picture Post explained this deep-seated opposition as follows: In the unstirred minds of many British mothers a black man is something out of the jungle. In taking a black man, her daughter is taking also black magic, black heartedness, and all kinds of black evil. Purity is white, sin is black. … Among men the suspicions are different, but no more reasonable. ‘Once a woman’s had a nigger mate, she won’t look at a white man again’ and ‘Lots of women are crazy about them – you see, Negroes think about nothing else … and they’ve got no inhibitions…’ Reason, or a few enquiries amongst the sort of women who are able to make comparisons, would show that Negroes are not better lovers than white men. British women who do prefer them are probably driven either by their own curious appetite, by their own loneliness, or by their sympathy for his. Often the Negro in Britain is a lonely man. This can lead to love. Equally perceptive was the article’s stress on the gendered character of such opinions. Black women marrying or dating white men caused far less discomfort than black men with white women: Soon, twenty-six British Guiana girls will be coming home as the wives of British soldiers. They will probably get a sincere and warmhearted welcome. But practically all mixed marriages in this country have been between Negro men and white women.52 This prediction was indeed borne out. In distinct contrast to its representation of black men in its ‘Men Without Women’ article, the Daily Sketch ran a headline story on the British Guianan brides entitled ‘Here Come the Brides!’ The headline was accompanied with a large picture of these young, well-dressed women lined up and posing on an

‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation 125

airstrip. Below, the article reported their departure in the following terms: A planeload of dusky glamour leaves Georgetown, capital of British Guiana, on the first leg of a journey to Britain. The girls are the wives of men of the 1st Battalion, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The troops went out last October to keep the peace. And soon they were captivated by the beauty of the local girls.53 Unlike the ‘men without women’, black women coming to Britain were not represented as an aggressive sexual threat. Whilst black men with white women generally aroused hostility and anger, white men with black women stimulated curiosity. It was a matter of two very different forms of otherness, one threatening, the other simply exotic: depravity versus ‘dusky glamour’. A logical extension of the antipathy to interracial sexual relations was the discomfort expressed about children of mixed parentage, referred to at the time as ‘half-caste’ or ‘miscegenated’ children. The issue here was not Winston Churchill’s fear of Britain becoming a ‘magpie society’, but the prospect of a mongrelized society in which black/white delineation was more blurred than the magpie metaphor suggests.54 This was succinctly expressed in March 1954, when the Birmingham News Chronicle posed the question: ‘Is Birmingham going to become a coffee-coloured town’?55 It is important to note that there was nothing especially new about this. Paul Rich has shown how a ‘half-caste pathology’ developed during the inter-war period in port towns such as Cardiff and Liverpool, where there were sizeable nonwhite populations.56 Arguably though, this pathology became more pertinent as Britain’s non-white population grew during the early 1950s; so much so that as anodyne a publication as Glamour magazine would warn its readers in 1951 that: many coloured men are fine people, but they do come from a different race, with a very different background and upbringing. Besides scientists do not yet know if it is wise for two such very different races as whites and blacks to marry, for sometimes the children of mixed marriages seem to inherit the worst characteristics of each race.57 The reference to scientists was largely spurious: by this time, few could be found who warned against the dangers of racial intermixing on

126 Citizenship and Belonging

biological grounds.58 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that some of the final expressions of the dwindling eugenics movement were spent in precisely this way. In his pamphlet on West Indian Immigration for the Eugenics Society, G. C. L. Bertram, formerly a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, listed the ‘social repercussions’ of immigration in terms of housing, employment, and ‘race-mixture (miscegenation)’: It is recognised that the more obvious disadvantages of race mixture are social and psychological but perhaps more amenable to correction; while the less obvious disadvantages, which are genetic, may be real, yet once they have taken place they cannot be undone.59 Bertram argued for further research into the ‘degree and results of miscegenation’ and urged that consideration be given to ‘the desirability of quality tests to limit the arrival of those with attributes below the general average for the United Kingdom’. Whilst acknowledging ‘an inconvenient lack of precise knowledge about the long-term implications of human genetic mixtures’, Bertram suggested that ‘there is indeed need to ponder whether there is justification for facilitating or blessing a freedom to intermingle’ given the uncertain consequences and the fact that ‘it is easy to mix and impossible to unmix’. The dangers of genetic degeneration were exacerbated by the fact that ‘West Indians … tend to mate with women of inferior social or biological standing, and the chances against their offspring are thus still further weighted’.60 Although we should not grant too much significance to such a source, since eugenics was by now a marginal and increasingly esoteric movement, what is interesting is that the views of Bertram were not so dissimilar from the ideas circulating in the popular publications discussed above.

4 Sexual morality and social order: the association of immigrants with vice and violence The attitudes discussed in the preceding section had concrete effects on British politics and society, and, above all, on the experiences of immigrants themselves. The remaining two sections of this chapter consider these effects, first at the societal level, then at the level of elite politics. Our discussion of the societal effects will focus on the association of immigrants with criminal vice and on motivations for racial violence.

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Immigrants and criminal vice In police reports from the early 1950s, colonial immigrants, primarily from the Caribbean and West Africa, were accused of widespread involvement in pimping, or, as it was known at the time, ‘living on immoral earnings’. This perception was supported by, and in turn reinforced, the view that black men lacked moral standards. In a submission to Scotland Yard, which undertook a series of investigations between 1949 and 1952 entitled ‘Public morals: reports on the settlement of coloured Commonwealth immigrants in London Boroughs’, ‘Commander 1’ of Lambeth police station wrote: There is no doubt that the absence of coloured women does to a considerable extent account for the large number of coloured men living with low class white women, particularly prostitutes. It is, however, probable that a large number of these coloured men, whose moral standard is very different to ours, would continue to live on prostitution even if there were more coloured women in this country. … [T]heir ethical conduct is deplorably low.61 Similar sentiments were repeated throughout the submissions: black men created ‘problems of moral conduct’; most of them were ‘unskilled labour of low mentality’ or ‘cunning and unprincipalled [sic] crooks living on women and their wits’; they were ‘loathsome creatures’ with ‘a very low moral standard’; and ‘the standard of honesty, truthfulness and general conduct of these men is extremely low’.62 One report, from the Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith station, told of the immigrants’ hypersexuality and lack of restraint: ‘even among the best of them there is a tendency to form associations with white women of the lower classes to whom the coloured man appears to have an irresistible sex attraction’. One officer was concerned less about interracial sexual relations than the prospect of the men ‘urging their families and kindred to join them. … What this will mean in the future I dread to think if they breed at the same prolific rate as in their own countries.’63 When the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, requested information on ‘coloured people’ from Scotland Yard, the resulting reports added to this repertoire of allegations. Scotland Yard collated reports from various police divisions and summarized the findings thus: ‘resentment is mainly engendered by the fear of many white people as to what the outcome may be if the number of coloured persons coming to London continues to increase, (e.g. difficulties over housing and the cohabitation of coloured men with white women)’.64 It was the cohabitation

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of black men with a ‘certain type of white girl’ that received the most attention. One report from the District Commander’s Office at Paddington Green station rose above simplistic stereotyping and made some astute remarks on the issue of interracial sex: A number of coloured men have been convicted of living on the immoral earnings of white prostitutes during the year. Various other offences have been committed by coloured men such as rape, abortion, brothel keeping, and indecent assault. There is a strong feeling among the poorer and middle-class white people that coloured people are immoral, and that they seek to seduce white women. This is a sweeping generalisation, but it is one of the several causes of resentment shown by whites towards coloureds. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that those cases involving coloured men and white women, tend to receive additional publicity in the local newspapers because of their appeal to the sensational.65 Such perceptions extended beyond the police and press into both local and central government. For example, the following passage taken from a memorandum prepared for the Advisory Panel of the Metropolitan Boroughs’ Standing Joint Committee encapsulates many of the most common allegations: Moral Problems The absence of coloured women subjects the coloured immigrant to the temptation of associating with undesirable white women, and there is ample evidence of considerable numbers of coloured men living with convicted prostitutes. In some cases there are grounds for thinking that the men may be living on the immoral earnings of their associates. Where there are children as a result of these irregular unions, it is far more difficult to obtain foster parents for, or secure the adoption of, these children than of illegitimate white children. The standard of honesty and ethical conduct generally of certain sections of immigrants is deplorably low. The memorandum also claimed that intimate relations between black men and white women was a common cause of violence: Anti-social behaviour Brawls are said to be not uncommon in areas where the coloured population is largest. Cases have occurred of stabbing affrays, frequently as a consequence of quarrels over white women.66

‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation 129

Attempts at explaining the alleged tendency towards vice among immigrants frequently resorted to stereotypes of non-white colonial peoples as hypersexual and lacking the moral education or civilization required to temper their libidinal drives. Peyton Short, a black American living in Britain as Warden of Mary Hughes House in Stepney, London, sent a report on ‘coloured people now residing in Stepney’ to the Colonial Office. His report was discussed at a meeting of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Colonial People in the United Kingdom on 19 July 1950, and it was suggested that he might assist in the production of a survey. Short’s report explained the prevalence of vice among immigrants as ‘perhaps due to a lack of understanding of western culture and a general lack of education, plus perhaps the present local environment’. Although Short did acknowledge the potential influence of local conditions, his reference to this reads like an afterthought, and he also ignored how loneliness and a sense of alienation from ‘respectable’ white society may have encouraged young men to find acceptance and a modicum of female companionship in disreputable areas. He goes on: Gambling, prostitution, drinking, fighting, and opiate drugs are common habits among a large portion of these citizens. In prostitution, the coloured men prefer the white girls with the obvious result in their offspring. These immoral practices need no excuse. They are facts and should be treated accordingly. In order to improve the situation Short recommended the provision of ‘educational facilities and premises to teach Colonial peoples the habits and ethics of a western civilisation’.67 It is difficult either to confirm or refute the allegations of vice among immigrants. The only data that are available relate to conviction rates for ‘living on the immoral earnings of women’ and come from a source – the police force – which perpetuated racial stereotypes. With this caveat in mind, such data from the Metropolitan Police nevertheless provide the best available estimate of the extent of immigrants’ involvement in pimping. It is revealing in itself that records for these convictions were classified by country of origin, and that they were submitted to the Dominions Office for consideration in the debate on immigration controls. Table 5.2 shows the convictions in the Metropolitan Police District for living on the immoral earnings of women between 1951–9, broken down by ‘national origin’.68 On average, in the years 1951–9, West Indians accounted for 9.2 per cent of convictions and West Africans for

130

Table 5.2 Persons convicted in the Metropolitan Police District of living on immoral earnings of women, classified by country of origin, 1951–9. Percentage and (total number of convictions). UK 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

75.9 (41) 70.8 (34) 26.7 (16) 45.9 (39) 35.1 (27) 29.2 (31) 34.6 (45) 33.8 (46) 37.7 (52)

Ireland Commonwealth

White

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.2 (1) 6.5 (5) 10.4 (11) 12.3 (16) 7.4 (10) 1.4 (2)

–

Note: Percentages are rounded to 1 d.p. Source: Adapted from PRO, DO 35/7991, Appendix B.

– 0.9 (1) 1.5 (2) – 0.7 (1)

West Africa 1.9 (1) 8.3 (4) 23.3 (14) 11.8 (10) 18.2 (14) 17.0 (18) 10.0 (13) 7.4 (10) 5.1 (7)

West Indies 9.3 (5) 4.2 (2) 8.3 (5) 2.4 (2) 1.3 (1) 4.7 (5) 11.5 (15) 21.3 (29) 19.6 (27)

Malta 11.1 (6) 16.7 (8) 35.0 (21) 29.4 (25) 36.4 (28) 34.9 (37) 26.9 (35) 23.5 (32) 28.3 (39)

Cyprus

Other

Total

1.9 (1) –

–

1.7 (1) 1.2 (1) –

5.0 (3) 8.2 (7) 2.6 (2) 1.9 (2) 2.3 (3) 3.7 (5) 5.8 (8)

100 (54) 100 (48) 100 (60) 100 (85) 100 (77) 100 (106) 100 (130) 100 (136) 100 (138)

0.9 (1) 0.8 (1) 2.9 (4) 1.4 (2)

–

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11.4 per cent. Thus black immigrants represented an average of 20.6 per cent of convictions, compared with an average of 43.3 per cent for people born in the United Kingdom, and 26.9 per cent for the Maltese. Whilst this is out of all proportion to the relative size of black immigrant groups in the Metropolitan Police District during the 1950s, we should be cautious about drawing hasty conclusions. As has been acknowledged recently, there is evidence to show that black people are more likely to be accosted and arrested by police officers for ‘street crimes’ than are white people, and this will inevitably affect conviction rates.69 Negative stereotypes have had (and continue to have) a significant influence on police officers’ behaviour and on the workings of the criminal justice system as a whole. Hence, when we consider these data alongside the prejudices of senior police officers documented above – that black men were of a ‘very low moral standard’ or that ‘their ethical conduct is deplorably low’ – we should caution against taking them wholly at face value. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the conviction rates above do strongly suggest that black immigrants were indeed disproportionately involved in these activities, even if the extent may be exaggerated. It should be noted that the conviction rates of West Africans and West Indians pale when compared with those of Maltese immigrants, yet it was black immigrants who attracted the most attention and moral approbation. For example, in a Commons adjournment debate on vice in London in 1956 (while the Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was underway), William Shepherd (Con.) warned how the streets of London were becoming increasingly ‘sordid places’. He argued that it was necessary to identify ‘the organizers of vice’ and encouraged stern action to be taken immediately: There are new forces moving in to take over prostitution in the West End of London. I am at least glad to say that our own nationals are by no means primarily connected with this disgusting but lucrative trade. The organisers are: first, Maltese; secondly, Cypriots; and latterly, West Indians. That last fact is very serious from the point of view of this country. West Indians and other negroes are organising prostitution in the West End, and there is evidence that they are bringing girls to this country from the West Indies for this purpose, as hon. Members can see for themselves in the streets. It is especially serious because our own existing statutes provide no means for stopping the entry of West Indians.70

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Thus, although West Indians were only ‘latterly’ involved in the ‘new forces’ taking over prostitution in London, it was their involvement which was deemed ‘especially serious’, and a clear association was made between the spread of vice and the absence of immigration controls. As if to remove any doubt about the racialization of this moral problem, Shepherd expressed concern for the effect on visitors from ‘Commonwealth countries’ but conspicuously intended this to refer only to the Old Commonwealth: My feelings are not so important as those of our visitors from the Commonwealth – Australia, New Zealand and Canada – who look at the state of affairs in the London streets and ask themselves, ‘Is this the centre of the great Commonwealth’? 71 W. F. Deedes, the Joint Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, replied at length to Shepherd’s statement, but made no comments on his inflammatory remarks about ‘negroes’, despite insisting on the need to ‘sort out the fact from the fiction’ in Shepherd’s speech. The linkage of vice and the need for immigration controls could not be brushed aside so easily, however. The following year, the Daily Mail made claims similar to those of Shepherd (although it did not distinguish as he did between Maltese and black immigrants) in a leader article entitled ‘Keep Them Out’. The article reported that although most Maltese and Jamaicans who came to Britain were ‘decent, hard-working folk’, there were some who ‘come here solely to exploit vice, and succeed in making a rich living out of it. They are moral degenerates. We do not want them, so why should we have to take them? It should be simple enough to insist that immigrants have genuine jobs awaiting them.’72 Interracial sexual relations and racial violence Whilst sexual stereotypes and allegations of immigrant involvement in vice often figured in discourse that presented immigration as a threat to the well-being of British society, an even more important influence on the immigration debate as a whole was racially-motivated violence. In particular, the 1958 ‘race riots’ in Nottingham and Notting Hill prompted a restrictionist shift in the immigration debate.73 This section shows that these events, as well as other, smaller incidents of racist violence, were themselves tied up with social tensions about interracial sexual relations. Indeed, as Michael Rowe has argued, miscegenation was central to the racialization of social disorder in twentieth century Britain.74

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Some of the earliest incidents did not directly involve white Britons, but originated in conflicts between colonial immigrants and European Volunteer Workers (EVWs). Many early immigrants’ first place of residence when they entered Britain was one of the hostels run by the National Service Hostels Corporation (NSHC). At these hostels immigrants of various nationalities resided together until they were able to find more permanent accommodation. During the late 1940s, residents included a small number of colonial immigrants as well as large numbers of EVWs. In January 1949, an NSHC official wrote to the Ministry of Labour warning of the ‘great difficulty [caused] to some of our managements because of the antagonisms and sometimes, fierce hatred, of one race to another’. According to NSHC reports, the chief cause of this violence was sexual competition. One official complained: it is invariably in connection with women that these troubles seem to arise. On my recent tours round the Regions, I heard several times that the Poles in particular intensely resent seeing black men dancing with white girls, whereas the white girls all too frequently seem to prefer dancing with the black men. My Personal Assistant suggests that they are probably better dancers!75 For example, at the Sherburn Industrial Hostel a disturbance was caused by a dispute between a Pole and a Jamaican over a white woman. Their quarrel at a Sunday dance escalated into a full brawl, which was interpreted by a Ministry of Labour official in the following terms: I imagine from what I heard that the Jamaicans soon went BERSERK and breaking up chairs used the legs of same as weapons and attacked all and sundry without discrimination, eventually resorting to stones from the rockery in the garden. … Without an enquiry it is impossible to lay the blame on any person or faction for the cause of the trouble. But, from all the evidence heard to-day, it appears that the Jamaicans ‘reverted to type’ and behaved in an uncontrolled manner quite usual in the environment from which they come. … I would like to stress my opinion that as long as Jamaicans are allowed to mix freely with white women there is always a danger of similar occurrences.76 Violence erupted again in August 1949 at the Causeway Green Hostel, near Oldbury, when a large group of Poles surrounded and attacked

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Jamaicans in their quarters. Once again, the incident grew out of a dispute between a Pole and a Jamaican over a woman; as the Daily Mirror reported it, ‘the trouble … started because English girls preferred Jamaicans as partners at hostel dance and cold-shouldered the Poles’.77 The longer-term background to the event also included the segregation of the Jamaicans from the Polish and the British. In the violence four men were badly injured, and it required fifty policemen to quell the disturbance. Although the Jamaican residents were clearly not the aggressors they, rather than their assailants, were considered to be the source of the problem. J. G. Stewart wrote on behalf of George Isaacs, the Minister of Labour, to the Town Clerk at Oldbury stating, ‘it would … in the Minister’s view be both undesirable and impracticable to remove all the coloured workers from the hostel’, however, ‘there will be no remedy to this state of affairs until the coloured element is removed, or the hostel closed’.78 The NSHC’s response to incidents such as these was to impose quotas for black people at their hostels. This was not without controversy: in 1955 a firm based in Baldock, Hertfordshire, complained that the NSHC was operating a colour bar, and was restricting the supply of West Indian labour. They protested to the regional office of the NSHC, which refused to amend its policy but offered to house a further thirty West Indians in the hostel at nearby Letchworth. The NSHC sought to justify its policy by reference to the ‘explosive mixture of nationalities’, but only immigrants from the Caribbean were set quotas. Stewart argued in a letter to R. H. Bindloss, the Executive Director of the NSHC, that ‘it has been found necessary by experience to have rules about the proportion of coloured men to white men’.79 Thus nationality was a euphemism; the real issue was conflict between black and white residents, often caused by competition over white women. Incidents of social disorder and violence directly involving white Britons were not long in developing. In a study of Stepney, east London, David Downes reported that ‘examples of disputes over gambling and women leading to unreported petty violence are too numerous to mention’.80 And in September 1951, in Great Lister Street, Birmingham – known as the ‘Burma Road’ to local inhabitants because of its large population of immigrants, albeit from the Indian subcontinent not Burma – police had to rescue six Indians and four white women who had been besieged by a crowd of indignant whites. This comparatively rare example of hostility towards Asian-white relations was reported by the Hindustan Times, which commented on the general atmosphere in the area: ‘sexually the problem bristles with difficulties.

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White girls seen with coloured men are the subject of insulting remarks from passersby; some people even spit on the pavement as they pass.’81 By far the most significant incidents of racial violence during the 1950s, however, occurred during the summer of 1958, in Nottingham and in Notting Hill, west London. Notting Hill was home to over seven thousand migrants, mostly from the Caribbean, and was known locally as ‘Brown Town’ – a pun on nearby White City. Nottingham had a smaller immigrant community, but as in Notting Hill the areas in which immigrants lived were run-down and overcrowded. By 1958 Britain was entering an economic recession, and unemployment stood at 2.2 per cent, a high figure for that time. During a long hot summer, both places, first Nottingham then Notting Hill, exploded in violence, providing the first post-war examples of so-called ‘race riots’. Undoubtedly, the riots had many causes, not least economic frustrations and housing problems, and my focus on the role played by antipathy towards interracial sexual relations is not intended to suggest that this was the sole cause. However, it was a major factor in the events that unfolded during August 1958. In Nottingham, the violence began on 23 August. A scuffle broke out at the Chase Tavern, in the St. Ann’s district, when a group of locals started taunting a black man who was talking to a white woman. The dispute spilled onto the street and gradually escalated until a crowd of over a thousand people were involved. The following weekend, on Saturday 30 August, a group of approximately four thousand white people gathered in St. Ann’s and fighting broke out between white and black residents. A total of 24 people were arrested and charged under the Public Order Act, all of them white. The violence was much worse in Notting Hill, and again grew from a small-scale dispute apparently motivated by hostility towards interracial relations. On Friday 29 August, Majbritt and Raymond Morrison, a married couple from Sweden and Jamaica respectively, were verbally abused by a group of young white men outside the Latimer Road Underground station. A fight broke out between Raymond Morrison and his friends and the men. The following night the violence resumed. Majbritt was walking home from a local public house after closing time, when a crowd began jeering ‘Nigger lover! Kill her!’ She was chased and milk bottles were thrown at her.82 Over the next two days, violence broke out throughout the area and Notting Hill became a hotbed of unrest. White youths, mostly male, roamed the streets attacking black people, sometimes besieging their homes. When the police moved in to quell the disturbances they too were attacked, rioters shouting that they

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were ‘nigger lovers’. Over 100 people were arrested during the Bank Holiday weekend, around 73 of them white and 34 black.83 The national newspapers universally condemned the violence, but generally portrayed it as the work of unrepresentative malcontents, especially ‘Teddy Boys’, and focused more on the ‘anti-social’ rather than the racist character of the rioters. At the same time, it was widely held that tension over interracial sexual relations played a significant role in provoking the violence. The Times reported that the riots were provoked by ‘sexual jealousy – the sight of coloured men walking along with white women’.84 The activities of neo-fascist agitators in the Notting Hill area undoubtedly exacerbated tensions, exploiting ‘sexual jealousy’,85 but the underplaying of more widespread antagonism in the national press was inaccurate. For on the issue of miscegenation, there was no clear water between populist and extremist views. The response to the riots by John Steel, leader of the fascistic National Labour Party, who believed that the presence of black people in Britain would result in a dangerous racial mixing, was not far removed from some of the views articulated in the mainstream publications already discussed: We will be a nation of half-castes. The result will be that the nation will possess neither the rhythm of the coloured man, nor the scientific genius of the European. The only thing we will ever produce is riots, just as do the mixed races of the world.86 And whilst editorials in national newspapers criticized the ‘stinking explosion’ of racism in Notting Hill, many of them also submitted that the riots illustrated the need for immigration controls. At least three newspapers, from across the political spectrum, called for restrictive legislation in response to the riots: in justification of this, the Daily Mirror complained that some black immigrants were indeed ‘no-goods’; the Daily Mail referred to an ‘already overcrowded island’; and The People asserted that ‘ “competition” for white girls … frequently brings out the worst in both white and black’.87 In stark contrast to the press furore, the Government’s response to the violence, or rather lack of it, was nothing short of staggering. Downing Street made no comment whatsoever until 3 September, and no official investigation was ever launched to look into the causes of the riots, nor was any kind of redevelopment scheme proposed. From the little evidence that exists about the motivations of the white men who took part in racial violence in the summer of 1958, an aversion to black men socializing with white women emerges

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repeatedly. In the aftermath of the riots, Barry Carman conducted a series of interviews for the Institute of Race Relations, which give an impression of the attitudes both of the rioters and observers. For example, Carman interviewed a group of ‘Teddy Boys’ who had been involved in the disturbances. When one of these youths stated that ‘they shouldn’t be let in’, Carman asked, ‘what sort of objections have you got?’ To which the interviewee replied, ‘I don’t like ‘em with white girls, I don’t like ‘em at all, they’re too filthy – I know, I’ve mixed with them, I’ve worked with them, I don’t like them at all, they’re no good’.88 When pressed to explain why he didn’t like to see white women with black men, he shifted the argument somewhat: Well it’s not them it’s the children – they’re half-castes. You want to know about the kids – the half-castes. Well we don’t want a lot of half-castes running around do we. I don’t mind Irish, Scotch, they all belong to the same country don’t they? You don’t want a lot of foreigners in here, especially black anyway. In my opinion they ought to be shot – the whole lot of them.89 Another one of the youths blamed the women who entered into relationships with black men: ‘I reckon the girls here are the start of it all. I mean if it weren’t for the girls going with them they wouldn’t have the influence of running the brothels and what have you. I mean they start it all don’t they.’90 What is consistent in the shifting responses given by Carman’s interviewees – in which various different stereotypes occur, including black men as ‘filthy’ pollutants of white ‘girls’, ‘half-castes’ as undesirable children, black men as brothel-keepers and pimps – is an overriding aversion to black sexuality and to black men associating with white women. One interviewee, a white member of a working men’s club in Sheffield, responded to the suggestion that black men might have a ‘special attraction for the women’ by claiming ‘it’s a novelty for the women. … Of course, the girls that they can get they’re not educated girls, they’re just – they’re just the – you know, the average knockabout.’91 An alternative way of explaining the aberrant behaviour of those women who dated black men was to claim that they had ulterior motives, usually financial gain. One Sheffield woman claimed that ‘most white girls go with them for money, clothes and what not’, and a taxi driver concurred ‘they’re certainly leading them on, and they’re there for profit too’. 92 It seems that the idea of a mutual, non-exploitative, even loving relationship between a black

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man and a white woman was beyond the comprehension of many Britons.

5 Political and policy implications of the gender imbalance The remainder of this chapter considers how, if at all, such attitudes permeated the political elite, and asks to what extent the gender imbalance among colonial immigrants informed immigration policy. It shows that although explicit discussion was both limited and nonpublic, consideration of the gender imbalance and the implications of miscegenation did take place and likely influenced a key aspect of the immigration regime developed in the 1960s. During the later 1950s and early 1960s, when the form of immigration controls was being considered, redress of the imbalanced gender ratio was seen as a desirable policy goal. The policy measure which allowed for this redress came in the form of an exemption from controls for dependants, mostly the wives and children of primary immigrants. Other factors played a role, not least human rights conventions to which the British Government was committed, but a desire to mitigate the social effects associated with a predominantly male migration was an influence on, and was certainly seen as a positive consequence of, the decision to exclude dependants from immigration controls. Elite attitudes towards miscegenation The popular anxieties about interracial sexual relations fed into government deliberations from an early stage. One of the first specially appointed committees on immigration, the Inter-Departmental Committee on Colonial People in the United Kingdom, received a report in November 1950 from Charles Owen, the Area Officer of the Colonial Office Welfare Department in Liverpool. Owen claimed that although immigrants were finding work and were not creating any unemployment amongst indigenous workers, they were creating housing and social problems: ‘The usual social problems are beginning to show themselves, and again, as elsewhere, there is some feeling in the immediate neighbourhood against the men on account of their relationships with white women.’ Furthermore, a local reverend was perturbed about the men’s ‘moral principles’.93 Other commentators who pointed out similar problems disavowed that race was relevant and argued that tensions arose inexorably from the gender imbalance, irrespective of the ethnicity of immigrants. For example, in an adjourn-

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ment debate on colonial immigrants, John Hynd (Lab.) raised the problems associated with immigration: there are … social questions which have nothing to do with colour, but are questions associated with any large settlement of virile young men removed from all social restraints, family, religious and others, in a foreign country, where they require relaxation, association with their own and the opposite sex and where, having lost all the restraints and restrictions which apply to them in their own family and religious circles, they are inclined to get into trouble.94 Such a view, however, ignored the considerable evidence of hostility to interracial sexual relations and the repertoire of racist sexual stereotypes that fed into this. It would be an exaggeration to say that interracial sexual relations preoccupied policy-makers over the following years. However, the various committees on immigration did consider the issue on a periodic basis. The Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, appointed by Eden in 1956 with instructions to consider the form restrictive legislation should take and how it might be justified, provides the most striking example. At the first meeting on 27 February, a memorandum by the Lord Chancellor was circulated and a draft bill to restrict immigration was considered. The memorandum rebuked some of the popular stereotypes about immigrants, including high levels of unemployment, welfare-scrounging, ill-health, and criminality: coloured immigrants have little difficulty in finding work here; they have not made undue demands on National Assistance; they have created no particular problem in regard to the Health Service; they are generally law-abiding; and, except in a few places, their presence has aroused little, if any, public expression of race feeling.95 Nevertheless, the Lord Chancellor suggested that a series of questions regarding the possible consequences of immigration required consideration. Two short-term and two long-term questions were posed: Short-term Is there any risk of – (i) A developing crisis over housing conditions? (ii) Ugly scenes when employment is no longer ‘over-full’?

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Long-term Are the following risks serious – (i) Miscegenation on any significant scale, with its gradual effect on the national way of life? (ii) The creation, on a significant scale, of a plural way of society, with the prospect of race riots, colour-bar incidents, and the emergence of a set pattern of politics cutting across ordinary political issues?96 The Committee felt that despite the rising ‘tide of immigration’ these potential consequences did not at the moment warrant major concern. Although the long-term ‘risks’ of miscegenation and pluralism were not currently serious, the minutes show that they were seen as something to be avoided if at all possible: If immigration continues at its present rate it will take at least ten years for the coloured population of this country (after allowing for natural increases) to rise to one per cent of the white population. There seems to be little evidence, or indeed likelihood, of interbreeding. The ordinary people of this country seem to be by no means intolerant of coloured people in their midst. There appears to be little prospect therefore of race riots or colour bar incidents on grounds of race alone. But there is always the special risk that some particularly dastardly crime involving a coloured man might touch off trouble of this kind.97 The Committee’s optimism as regards the likelihood of race riots was, of course, misplaced, but the statement on miscegenation was more accurate. Despite tabloid sensationalism, there was in fact no largescale ‘inter-breeding’: colonial immigrants were a small part of the total population and the taboos about interracial sexual relations ensured that intermixing was relatively uncommon. At its next meeting though, the Committee’s initial lack of concern about miscegenation was tempered, and it was decided that it could yet prove to be a significant long-term issue: The indications that there was little inter-breeding at present could not be projected to justify a forecast for the future. On present evidence a trend towards miscegenation could neither be forecast nor could it be excluded. If such a trend were to occur it would be an important factor. It could not, therefore, yet be said that the

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continued immigration of coloured people would not give rise to special long-term consequences which were different in nature from the short-term problems.98 The explicit differentiation between the ‘special long-term consequences’ of miscegenation and more ‘short-term problems’, such as housing and employment, illustrates how the Committee viewed immigration not only in terms of immediate, practical issues, but also with regard to changes in the composition and the character of the British population in years to come. It is implicit in these minutes (and we can only guess what might have been said off the record) that the prospect of a ‘coffee-coloured country’ was something to be avoided, if at all possible. The conclusion that there was no current problem was premised on the lack of evidence of ‘inter-breeding’, not on a disavowal that this could indeed create a future problem. There can be little doubt that interracial sexual relations were considered, a priori, to be undesirable; and it seems likely that had any evidence been forthcoming that the incidence of such relations was increasing it would have formed an argument in favour of restrictive legislation. In the event, the Committee decided against recommending legislation. Although they spoke of a ‘coloured invasion’, the ministers did not yet consider the issue so grave as to warrant legislation, and they were especially worried about liberal opinion. However, the conclusions that ‘there seemed little doubt that some form of control would become necessary in the long run’ was at the core of the recommendations presented in a report to the Cabinet in June. 99 At the Committee’s third meeting of the year there was little deviation from these conclusions, and miscegenation was not discussed. As it emerged that the predominance of males had declined slightly, the concern over interracial sexual relations receded. In November, the Colonial Secretary reported to the Committee that a higher proportion of arrivals that year had consisted of wives and families than previously: ‘this made the presence here of large numbers of male coloured immigrants less of a social problem and was, on that account, to be welcomed’.100 It is notable that in a supplementary report on the exemption of Irish immigrants from any possible immigration controls it was argued that ‘the presence in the United Kingdom of comparatively large numbers of Irish Republican citizens does not give rise to the same kind of problems or forebodings as the presence here of similar numbers of coloured people might be thought to justify’.101 Of course, one of the major differences between

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colonial and Irish immigration was that the latter did not raise the problem of miscegenation. After the flurry of activity between 1954 and 1956, there was a lull in the immigration debate. During the period 1957–9, immigration was discussed at Cabinet level on only six occasions, compared with 18 occasions during the previous three years.102 Against this general background, and given the conclusions discussed above, the alleged threat of miscegenation disappeared as a focus for major concern, at least among the upper echelons of government. Politicians commented positively on the gradual shift in the gender ratio. For example, in June 1959, Fenner Brockway (Lab.) asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonial Office, Julian Amery, about the proportion of recent migrants who were ‘women and families … joining men’. Amery replied that he would look into the matter. Nigel Fisher (Con.) followed Brockway’s question by asking the Minister if his promised research into the subject would: confirm that the latest figures for West Indian immigrants to this country reveal a higher percentage of women and children in relation to men than in previous years, and, if so, would my hon. Friend agree that this is a welcome trend in achieving a more balanced migrant population and, consequently, in lessening the friction arising from the association of coloured men and white girls?103 Amery simply repeated that he would look into the question. While antipathy towards interracial sexual relations continued to play a role in creating tensions at the societal level, as far as the political elite were concerned the trend towards a more balanced gender ratio had relegated the issue on the immigration agenda. Increasingly, the question was how this trend could be furthered. In 1959, the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants discussed the effects of the shift in the gender ratio, which were considered to be socially, if not economically, desirable: ‘the proportion of women immigrants is increasing; the majority are thought to be coming to join men already here. Their presence may mitigate some social problems but they are becoming increasingly difficult to place in employment.’104 This conclusion was supported by the National Assistance Board, which reported during the same year that ‘since 1956 fewer men but more coloured women and children have arrived in Britain, presenting a fresh employment problem, but perhaps easing a probable source of friction with the white community’.105 Even though the

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trends were in the right direction, the gender ratio remained uneven and continued to trouble the Government. Research conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government into the ‘social and economic effects of coloured immigration’ during the early 1960s noted that between 1951 and 1961: Whilst the increases among the population of European stock have shown an overall female dominance (+ 56,000 males, + 100,000 females), there has been an almost equally strong male dominance evident in the increase among the population of non-European stock (+ 183,000 males, + 115,000 females).106 The research paper claimed that the male predominance in the increase among the population of ‘non-European stock … poses problems’, but these were not specified. Although it was a less prominent issue from the late 1950s onwards, miscegenation continued to figure as a point of debate in the working parties and committees below Cabinet level. In 1960, the Working Party on Coloured Workers107 requested actuarial estimates of future numbers of immigrants from the General Register Office (GRO). Notably, the GRO gave estimates which assumed that all female immigrants would ‘either marry coloured males or form unions with coloured males which will make them productive of children’ and that ‘none of the other males will marry or beget children’. An unidentified civil servant underlined this last sentence and wrote: ‘Is this realistic’?108 According to a working party report submitted to the Cabinet Committee one year later, the assumption was not in fact as unrealistic as was once thought. Under the heading ‘Assimilation and Race Relations’, the report recounted how ‘in Birmingham, where about 700 Englishwomen (including some prostitutes) are believed to be living with coloured men, there is believed to be little intermixing. … There appears to be comparatively little miscegenation, but there is a high rate of illegitimacy amongst the West Indian communities, where “common law marriages” are (as in their own country) the rule rather than the exception.’ The report went on to argue against the introduction of legislation to outlaw ‘colour bars’, not only because it would ‘spotlight the existence of racial discrimination’ and ‘make it difficult in practice for proprietors of places of public resort to exercise their right to exclude undesirable elements from their premises’, but also because ‘in any case, many coloured people have no desire to mix with white people’.109

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As the low levels of intermixing became apparent, anxieties about the sexual life of immigrants partly shifted from interracial sex to sexual morality within immigrant communities, particularly those from the Caribbean. The National Assistance Board received a memorandum from its Midland Regional Office expressing concern about the ‘moral standards’ of West Indian women. Under the heading ‘Cohabitation’ it reported that: we have been hearing rather a lot around Birmingham recently of cohabitation amongst the West Indians. (The Pakistanis do not usually bring women with them). We are told that couples often live together without the formality of marriage and this is not frowned on in their own country. … The Manager of one of our Birmingham offices who has a lot of immigrants in his area says: ‘A major problem in this area is the growing number of single West Indian women with illegitimate children, particularly when it is related to their moral standards. Most of these women live in houses populated by West Indian men and there is a free and easy attitude between all the occupants, and both male and female members of the house have more or less free access to each others rooms, by day and by night’.110 Other regional offices wrote to express similar views. In addition, officials were concerned about the high birth-rate among immigrant groups. Although it was generally acknowledged that the demographic characteristics of these groups was more important in explaining this than sexual morality, high birth-rates nevertheless presaged further changes in the composition of the British population, as well as creating potential social difficulties. A Treasury memorandum, submitted to the Working Party on Coloured Workers reported that: it is almost an invariable experience with immigration that the birth rate is high among the immigrants. This partly reflects their age, partly the differential birth-rate that used to exist between rich and poor, and partly the influence of improved social circumstances. We cannot therefore assume that there will not be a high birth-rate among immigrants, and there is already evidence that this is becoming a problem for some local authorities.111 Short of repatriation – which was never a serious option beyond the extremist fringe – there was little that could be done to halt the natural

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growth of the already-settled immigrant population; what could be addressed by policy means, however, was the gender ratio of arriving immigrants. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act and dependants policy In the previous chapter we saw how the Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee concluded in 1961 that ‘the case for legislative restriction of this immigration is not economic but social’; employment, as Rab Butler made clear, had been settled upon as the means of controlling immigration but it was not the grounds for doing so.112 And in Chapter 2 we saw that the ‘social’ factors which motivated the Government to restrict colonial immigration included racial demography, overcrowding, and social tensions. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (CIA 1962) empowered the Government to set annual quotas for the admission of primary immigrants, but, crucially, it excluded dependants from immigration controls. This meant that after 1962 significant numbers of colonial subjects continued to enter the country, but the majority were now women and children. The original Bill, presented to Parliament in November 1961, did not contain a clause relating to dependants. It was intended that they would be exempted from controls in practice, as Butler assured the House in the Second Reading.113 This was not enough for many on the Opposition benches, who wished to see the rights of dependants written into the Bill. The Government responded to their demands by introducing an amendment at the Committee Stage giving a statutory guarantee of entry to dependants ‘and also, to meet anxieties about the Government’s assurances, it has been made clear that [dependants] cannot be refused entry on medical grounds, or on grounds of criminal record’.114 Under Section 2 (2) (b) of CIA 1962 (hereafter the dependants clause) the power to refuse admission could not be exercised over anyone who was the wife,115 or a child under 16 years of age, of a Commonwealth citizen who was already resident in the United Kingdom or who was legally entering the United Kingdom, as a voucher-holder for example. In accounting for this, it should first be said that the right of dependants to join primary immigrants is almost universally recogized in the immigration legislation of democratic countries. As has been pointed out, ‘no liberal democracy has ever prevented family reunification’116 and the right to family reunification is protected by international law. Article 16 of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees family and marriage rights. The British Government had also ratified the European Convention on Human

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Rights in 1951, which makes a similar provision in its Article 8, ‘Right to respect for private and family life’. Therefore, had the Government refused entry to dependants it would almost certainly have been subject to a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights for a breach of the Convention. Perhaps these conventional and legal precedents made the dependants clause of CIA 1962 somewhat inevitable, for it was certainly uncontroversial. Nevertheless, as the Labour Government’s approach to the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act shows, international law was a weak bind on a Government that was intent on restricting immigration. In the face of overriding domestic concerns, international legal obligations could and would be sidelined. When it came to allowing dependants entry to the United Kingdom in 1962, domestic considerations – namely the desire to redress the gender imbalance and encourage family migration – coincided with international legal obligations. Evidence establishing a clear causal linkage between the gender imbalance and the dependants clause is lacking. There is nevertheless circumstantial evidence which, when combined with the foregoing debates, shows that the approach to dependants policy was gendered. Further, it is certainly the case that the exclusion of dependants from controls was viewed as having a positive impact on the immigrant population. First, the circumstantial evidence. Most obviously, CIA 1962 refers only to wives and children, not spouses or husbands. At the Committee Stage, four MPs (all female as it happens) tabled an amendment to change the word ‘wife’ to ‘spouse’ in the Government’s proposal on dependants, thereby including husbands in the definition. The Government successfully resisted this amendment. Although in practice it was intended that (the relatively small number of) husbands would normally be admitted at the discretion of immigration officers, the Government was opposed to making this a statutory right. Its reasoning was as follows: the Government do not think it right to equate the statutory position of husbands with that given to wives by this amendment. An assurance can be given and the instructions to Immigration Officers will confirm this, that a husband will normally be admitted if his wife has an unrestricted right of access under Clause 1, or is already in the United Kingdom. But where neither wife nor husband have a close connection with the United Kingdom – e.g. where the wife left the United Kingdom soon after birth here and her husband has never been here – the Immigration Officer should retain a discretion

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to refuse entry to the husband on grounds of criminal record, health or likely charge on public funds. … This reflects the fact that, even today, the husband is the head of the family, and the general presumption that a wife acquires the domicile of the husband.117 If, to invert the above example, the husband had been UK-born, had left soon after birth and now wished to return with his wife, she would count as a dependant. This was arbitrary and granted the right of extending dependant status to one’s spouse to male citizens only. Therefore, whatever the merit of the Government’s arguments, the definition of dependant status was undoubtedly gendered. After 1962, the positive impact of the dependants clause on the gender imbalance in the immigrant population was often remarked upon. A 1965 Home Office research paper identified the ‘imbalance in the immigrant male and female numbers’ as always having been a central problem of colonial immigration, and recommended that ‘as far as possible family migration should be encouraged. Single immigrants should be provided with every facility and opportunity of establishing normal family relations.’118 Around the same time, however, the total number of dependants entering the country came under attack from Conservatives. A minister proposed that the Government could ‘take the steam out of Tory proposals’ to reduce the number of dependants by ‘stressing the importance of admitting dependants for health and social reasons’.119 Similarly, in November 1967, the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, made the connection between attaining a gender balance in immigrant communities and the continued entry of dependants, adding criminal repercussions to the equation. Jenkins argued that ‘to separate families cannot be in the interests of integration or good race relations, or of the avoidance, which we have so far achieved in this country, of any significant link between race and crime’.120 The dependants clause of CIA 1962 did indeed have the effect of evening out the gender ratio of immigrants, and therefore of changing the composition of immigrant groups in Britain. Between 1 July 1962 and 30 June 1968, a total of 232,988 dependants were admitted as compared with a total of 75,748 labour voucher holders.121 In practice, the range of those accepted as dependants was more generous than the stipulations of CIA 1962: children up to the age of 18, children up to 16 coming to join close relatives other than parents, fiancées and common law wives, and elderly parents were all generally permitted entry. And, as Ian Spencer puts it, ‘few, if any, checks were made on

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bona fides’.122 The upshot of this, as Table 5.1 above shows, was that whereas in 1961 there were 1,548 male colonial immigrants resident in England and Wales for every 1,000 females, by 1966 the imbalance had been reduced to 1,384 males for every 1,000 females. For the years 1961–6, the ratio was 1,279 male migrants for every 1,000 females. Unsurprisingly, then, from 1962 onwards the gender ratio became less of an issue. Immigrants of Caribbean origin were almost genderbalanced in 1966 (between 1962 and 1966 more women than men actually migrated from the Caribbean). Since it was primarily black – as opposed to Asian – males who were perceived as a sexual threat this was a significant development. Pakistani immigrants living in England and Wales remained predominantly male in 1966 (4,231 males to 1,000 females), but here too the trend after 1962 was towards a greater number of females. A quantitative logic takes over: restrictions on dependants Increasingly, the dependants clause came to seem too generous to many policy-makers, and the direction in which Government opinion moved from around the mid-1960s was towards tightening the regulations.123 In the 1965 White Paper, the Wilson Government announced its intention to enforce the application of the rules governing dependent relatives more strictly.124 From now on, only children under 16 were to be admitted, and nephews and cousins, both of which had previously been admitted on a discretionary basis, were not to be granted dependant status. The production of entry certificates or other appropriate documents to establish identity was made compulsory. Entry Control Officers were posted to colonies and Commonwealth countries to check identity and issue certificates prior to embarkation. Certificates would not normally be granted unless the head of household had provided details in advance of the dependants he wished to enter the country.125 Notwithstanding these changes, colonial immigration continued to be dominated by dependants: one estimate has it that for each labour voucher issued an average of 3.7 people entered the country.126 By 1968, further restrictions on dependants were thought to be necessary by the Government. In January, Denis Howell, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Education, wrote to Richard Crossman, who chaired the Commonwealth Immigration Committee, stating that ‘we ought to reduce the inflow of dependants as soon as possible … interracial tension is on the increase’. Furthermore, ‘one of the most difficult problems we have, both educationally and from the

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point of view of successful integration, is the number of youngsters who come in at school leaving age, with little or no knowledge of English and without any qualification for employment’.127 The logic of integration now required fewer, not more, dependants. Accordingly, the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act limited the right of entry of dependent children by requiring that both parents should be present in the United Kingdom. This two-parent rule was aimed to ‘stem the tide of very young immigrants’ and also to ensure that mothers as well as fathers were present in order to ‘reduce the welfare problems presented by all-male households’.128 As one Home Office official put it, changes in the rules were required to avoid ‘the undesirability of unaccompanied children joining the father in this country and living in all male households’. 129 This caused a sharp drop in the number of dependants entering from Pakistan, as many were boys coming to join their fathers (wives and daughters often remained in Pakistan). In addition, the checks on bona fides were tightened. It was now necessary for dependants to provide legal documentation proving their relationship with their sponsor and for children to provide evidence of their age. 130 The exemption from the medical conditions that were applied to primary immigrants continued for dependants however.131 It is interesting that nearly all of the tightening of rules governing the entry of dependants between 1962 and 1968 focused on children and relatives, not wives. A 1967 Home Office memorandum made clear that an excessive number of children was the main problem and that ‘the statistics for the admission of women give no cause for concern’.132 The net effect of the changes was not only to reduce the total number of dependants, but also to reduce further the predominance of males among immigrants as a whole. The changes introduced to narrow the definition of dependant status and tighten the eligibility criteria for entry developed despite a positive assessment of the changing gender ratio, and reflected a growing anxiety about the potentially limitless number of dependants – especially children and relatives – who could enter Britain. Now that a more even gender ratio had been achieved, a quantitative logic (sheer numbers) superseded a qualitative one (gender composition of immigrant groups). Over the course of the 1960s the policy on dependants fell in line with the restrictionist direction of immigration policy in general. While the entry of dependants was originally considered a means to attaining a more gender-balanced immigrant population, it soon became part of the wider numbers game.

6 Public Health and Immigration Policy

1

Introduction

Having considered the supposed threats of welfare parasitism and sexual contamination in the previous two chapters, I turn now to address how the public health implications of colonial immigration informed political debate and policy outcomes. In the 1950s and 1960s, immigration was widely thought to present a threat to public health, and the most common response was to recommend some form of medical examination for immigrants. The British Medical Association (BMA), for example, lobbied the Ministry of Health, arguing that medical checks should be made compulsory at ports of entry. Although it resisted the calls for compulsory medical examinations, the Ministry responded to growing pressure from the medical establishment, the press, and the public in general, by developing a dual strategy comprised of integrationist measures and limited examinations upon entry. Whilst the (non-compulsory) examinations were intended to restrict the number of infected immigrants from entering the country, the integrationist measures were designed to educate immigrant communities about the need for health awareness and selfregulation once admitted. As in other areas of demographic governance, then, the public health management of immigration had both an external and internal dimension. This subject has been almost entirely overlooked in the literature on post-war immigration.1 Insofar as health appears at all in broader studies of immigration, it is generally as a footnote on the contribution immigrants have made to the National Health Service (NHS). This is clearly an important subject (in 2000, black and Asian nurses accounted for 8 per cent of the nursing workforce and 13.9 per cent of 150

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consultants were black or Asian)2 but it will not figure prominently here. Rather, the aim of this chapter is to show how and why the health of colonial immigrants was an important aspect of immigration politics. The most striking aspect of this was the way in which successive British governments resisted calls for compulsory medical examinations, even when they were endorsed by the BMA, which was arguably the most influential pressure group in the health policy arena.3

2

Public health and immigration, 1949–60

The association of immigration with public health concerns in the post-war period was far from unprecedented. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, substantial numbers of eastern Europeans, many of them Jews fleeing pogroms, emigrated to Britain. In response to this migration a significant lobby grew which advocated the closing of Britain’s borders, open throughout the nineteenth century. Stereotypes of Jews as lazy and unhygienic were widespread and were readily deployed by restrictionists. MPs for East End constituencies argued for immigration controls on the grounds that eastern Europeans were of ‘bad character’, and marked by poverty and ill-health.4 A Royal Commission was appointed to investigate such claims and advise on the need for legislation. The Commission’s report of 1903 rejected the allegations that immigrants had poor hygiene and suffered ill-health, but it upheld claims of criminality among aliens. A recommendation for restrictive legislation limiting certain categories of immigrants, particularly eastern Europeans was made. The Conservative Government responded with the Aliens Act of 1905, which limited immigration to Britain for the first time. The Act gave immigration officers and medical inspectors powers to refuse entry to an ‘undesirable immigrant’, defined as anyone who was unlikely to be able to support him- or herself, who had been extradited from another country as a criminal punishment, or who ‘is a lunatic or idiot, or owing to any disease or infirmity appears likely to become a charge upon the rates or otherwise a detriment to the public’.5 The Act also empowered the Secretary of State to issue expulsion orders to aliens convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment, extradited before 1905, or ‘found wandering without ostensible means of subsistence, or … living under insanitary conditions due to overcrowding’.6 In a telling phrase, Prime Minister Arthur Balfour defended the Bill in the Commons by asserting that the United Kingdom had the ‘right … to keep out everybody who

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does not add to the strength of the community – the industrial, social and intellectual strength of the community’.7 During the post-war period, the debate about the public health implications of colonial immigration centred on tuberculosis and venereal diseases. It became increasingly apparent during the late 1950s and 1960s that immigrants from the Indian sub-continent were overrepresented among tuberculosis cases, and that immigrants from the Caribbean were over-represented among cases of gonorrhoea and syphilis. Various explanations were offered for this, ranging from crude racialized accounts based on reductive physiological arguments, to more refined analyses of migration processes acknowledging the importance of environmental factors. The explanations adopted were extremely important because they directly shaped attitudes about what types of policies were necessary and appropriate. Policy proposals ranged from medical examinations at ports of entry or embarkation to outright bans on further immigration, or even repatriation. Tuberculosis Tuberculosis remained a major concern in the 1950s and 1960s.8 Throughout this period it was a more frequent cause of death than any other acute specific infection.9 As preventive measures improved – particularly as the BCG vaccination became more widely available and mass radiography and chest clinics more widespread – notification and mortality rates declined. In 1953 there were just under 100 notifications of respiratory tuberculosis per 100,000 population; by 1962 this had approximately halved to around 50 per 100,000.10 There were also marked improvements in the number of mortalities caused by the disease: taking 1950–2 as 100, the Standard Mortality Ratio for tuberculosis had declined to 22 by 1962. Notwithstanding this progress, tuberculosis remained a significant threat to public health. In many countries of the Empire/Commonwealth, particularly on the Indian sub-continent, poverty, malnutrition, and disease were the cause of high mortality rates. Tuberculosis, a treatable disease associated with poverty, was an especially potent threat. At the second Commonwealth and Empire Health and Tuberculosis Conference, held in London during the summer of 1949, a ‘sombre picture’ was painted of the situation as regards tuberculosis in India. It was estimated that 500,000 people were dying of the disease every year, and there were approximately 2.5 million open cases.11 Two years later the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported a statement by the Chairman of the Tuberculosis Association of India arguing that the disease seriously

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depleted productivity, costing about 1,000 million ‘man days’ each year.12 Whilst the Indian sub-continent was the focus of worries about tuberculosis in the Empire/Commonwealth, it was not alone. In a BMJ article of May 1951 the incidence of tuberculous lymphadenitis in the ‘Nigerian African’ was discussed. Conditions in Nigeria were compared to those in ‘civilized countries’ and the conclusion was reached that ‘in the Nigerian African … there is a tendency to rather more florid manifestations [of tuberculous lymphadenitis] than in the European’.13 From these few illustrations we can see that the medical profession was both aware of and actively considering the incidence of tuberculosis in colonial and Commonwealth countries. Before significant numbers of colonial immigrants arrived in Britain therefore, the problem of tuberculosis in the originating countries was well-established. Venereal diseases In the decade immediately after the end of the Second World War, the incidence of venereal diseases in Britain declined. From the mid-1950s, however, gonorrhoea infections began to rise, as did syphilis infections from the early 1960s, generating significant concern among the medical profession. By contrast with the study of tuberculosis in the Empire/Commonwealth, which focused on the Indian sub-continent, consideration of venereal diseases in colonial countries was concentrated on Africa and the Caribbean. In December 1951 an article on ‘Venereal Diseases in the Colonies’ was published in the BMJ. It stated that ‘in few places in Africa can any firm estimate be made of their [venereal diseases] incidence, but there can be little doubt that next to malaria they account for more invalidity and more human suffering than any other disease’.14 Opinion as to the significance of immigrants’ contribution to the increased levels of venereal diseases in Britain during the second half of the 1950s was mixed. On the one hand, the onset of immigration coincided with an increase in gonorrhoea: reported cases increased by 74 per cent between 1951 and 1959.15 A report in the Medical Press in 1958 argued that ‘the influx of West Indian immigrants has undoubtedly been a major factor in beginning the increase of gonorrhoea in the areas where they have settled’.16 During the same period, however, syphilis was actually in decline, although there was a steep increase during the period 1960–1. In a slightly opaque analysis the BMJ claimed that: So far as syphilis was concerned, there was in Britain the problem of what was defined as an ‘ethnic minority’, but surveys had

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been made, and while admittedly immigrants subscribed very markedly to the problem, there would still have been an increase in gonorrhoea.17 Whatever the actual level of incidence, venereal disease was often associated with black people, especially from Africa and the Caribbean. An exchange in 1951 in the BMJ’s ‘Any Questions’ column was over the extent to which ‘racial factors determine the clinical manifestations of syphilis’.18 Whilst the incidence of tuberculosis had no obvious moral implications, save for standards of hygiene and sanitation as a metric of ‘civilization’, the incidence of venereal diseases was readily associated with sexual morality and standards of civility more generally. Public health and immigration prior to 1962 In the 1950s, early concerns about the health of colonial immigrants were reported in newspapers reports and were the subject of occasional Parliamentary debates. In 1953, the Evening Standard reported on tuberculosis among immigrants in St Pancras, London, initiating a response in the BMJ;19 and a case of leprosy in a ‘26 year-old coloured woman’ in Walsall, Staffordshire, brought calls for migrants to be medically examined before they could enter the country.20 Cyril Osborne (Con.), a leading restrictionist, told the Manchester Guardian that tuberculosis, which had nearly been conquered, had been brought back to Britain by Pakistani and Irish immigrants.21 In Parliament, Kenneth Robinson (Lab.) asked what recommendations the Minister of Health, Iain Macleod, had received from the Standing Tuberculosis Advisory Committee on ‘the problem of imported tuberculosis’. Macleod replied that the Committee had not yet made any recommendations. Robinson, apparently unsatisfied with this response, thought the Committee had been taking ‘rather a long time’ addressing this issue. Macleod insisted that investigations were under way and assured the House that matters were under consideration by the Ministry of Labour and the Aliens Department at the Home Office.22 A similarly evasive response had been given to a written question from Reader Harris (Con.) about the importation of tuberculosis by aliens. Macleod stated that he had no ‘comprehensive figures or information on this problem’ but assured Harris that it was under consideration.23 A similar admission on the lack of reliable information about immigrants’ health, which contrasted with the widespread rumours and allegations, was made by the Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd-George, in a paper presented to the Cabinet in August 1955:

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‘there is some suggestion that there is a high incidence of venereal disease among West Indians but no statement to that effect could be supported by figures’.24 One year later, in a Lords debate on immigration in November 1956, Lord Middleton argued that the medical profession was ‘gravely concerned about the unsatisfactory state of health of a high proportion of immigrants and the ill results to our own people’. He claimed that ‘very many of the immigrants from the West Indies come to our country riddled with diseases, in particular tuberculosis and venereal disease’.25 Lord Lucan disagreed, arguing that there was no cause for alarm: the number of immigrants entering the country with tuberculosis was very small and the Health Service had the disease well under control. Replying for the Government, Lord Mancroft said that the evidence available to him did not show that West Indians were particularly vulnerable to tuberculosis or venereal diseases.26 Such wide disagreement was perhaps inevitable given that prior to 1962 there were no statutory provisions for the medical examination of colonial immigrants, and therefore no reliable data. CUKCs could enter Britain freely and without inspection. In contrast, aliens could be examined under the provisions of the Aliens Order of 1953. This gave powers to medical inspectors to examine any alien entering Britain and to refuse permission to land for medical reasons. The only exception to this was that those arriving from an ‘excepted area’ – defined in the Public Health (Aircraft) Regulations 1953 as Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Irish Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – were exempted from health controls. The powers to examine aliens from other areas were exercised, and a small percentage were refused entry to the country on medical grounds.27

3

Public health and the immigration debate, 1961–5

From 1961 onwards there was extensive discussion at the Ministry of Health and other government departments about the need or otherwise to institute some form of medical screening for immigrants. In November 1961, the Ministry of Health received notification from the BMA informing them that members of the Annual Representative Meeting had passed a resolution stating that they: ‘view with concern the continued admission of immigrants to the U.K. without proper medical check and consider that all immigrants should have a chest x-ray in order that those found to have active lesions may be advised on how best to obtain proper treatment’.28 This modest demand –

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there is no mention of checks as a condition of entry, which would become central to BMA demands within the next few years – went beyond what the Government was prepared to do. The Commonwealth Immigrants Bill currently under consideration included a subsection giving medical inspectors the authority to examine immigrants at the ports of entry at their discretion, but it did not specify that all immigrants would be examined, nor did it specify the content of examinations. Although the BMA welcomed the Government’s recognition of the importance of the public health dimension of immigration, as indicated by the provision in the Bill, it ‘hope[d] that the Government will consider widening that subsection in the manner indicated in the above quoted resolution’.29 The Ministry’s reluctance to propose tighter regulations was based on pragmatic and political considerations. Two potential strategies for the medical examination of migrants – either before disembarkation or upon entry – were entertained only to be rejected. Checks in the countries of origin were considered impracticable: large numbers of British doctors would have to be dispatched to undertake the checks themselves or smaller numbers would have to be employed to recognize local practitioners. Neither option was inexpensive, and the second option had potentially awkward diplomatic implications.30 Checks at ports of entry would be difficult and expensive, requiring extensive ‘medical manpower … disproportionate to the benefits which might accrue’. As this quotation shows, the Ministry’s pragmatism was based on a loose cost-benefit analysis, an assessment of the potential threat weighed against the costs of imposing checks. It was over their respective assessments of the public health risk posed by immigration that the Ministry and the BMA disagreed. Thus the Ministry replied to the BMA’s request: the public health risk arising from the greater liability to tuberculosis of immigrants, e.g. from Asia and the West Indies, is relatively small, and to insist on a medical examination accompanied by x-ray in the case of all immigrants at the ports of entry would require a diversion of medical staff and equipment on a scale out of all proportion to any likely benefit to the nation’s health.31 In addition, as far as the Government was concerned, compulsory medical examinations was a politically sensitive issue. As we have seen in previous chapters, in its approach to immigration control the Government was concerned not to alienate or antagonize colonial and

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Commonwealth governments during a period of British imperial decline. Regarding medical examinations, it wished to avoid making an ‘invidious distinction’ between colonial immigrants and aliens by imposing compulsory checks on the former. Thus, for a combination of pragmatic and political reasons, the department responsible for ensuring the health of the nation found itself at odds with the most influential and expert pressure group on medical matters, the BMA.32 Although it did not go far enough for the BMA, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 (CIA 1962) did take account of the effects immigration might have on public health. As discussed in Chapter 2, the major criterion for entry was possession of one of three types of labour voucher issued by the Government according to annually set quotas. A subsection of CIA 1962 also made admission conditional upon good health: any person seeking to enter the United Kingdom could be refused permission to do so if a medical inspector deemed that the person was ‘suffering from mental disorder, or that it is otherwise undesirable for medical reasons that he should be admitted’.33 The one significant exception were those persons classified as dependants, the wives and children of immigrants already resident in the United Kingdom. Dependants were excluded from all controls, including possible medical inspections, ‘since [the Government] would not be justified in depriving a breadwinner of his wife and family’.34 Thus, although CIA 1962 allowed for the x-ray of immigrants (with the exception of those defined as dependants) it stopped short of making such examinations a compulsory condition of entry. The BMA’s recommendation of a compulsory x-ray of all immigrants, which they had ‘repeatedly pressed’ the Government to introduce, was not heeded. Unsurprisingly, the BMA’s Tuberculosis and Diseases of the Chest Group Committee ‘deplored the fact that the recommendations of the BMA had been ignored’.35 This question of compulsion would animate the debate between the Ministry of Health and the BMA for the next six years. Whilst tuberculosis was the major disease associated with colonial immigration, it was not the only one. In January 1962, five months before CIA 1962 came into force, five Pakistani immigrants who had entered Britain through London Airport (known today as London Heathrow) developed smallpox after arrival. Later that year the Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report recorded that ‘in August another importation occurred, this time by ship to the Port of London, where an Indian boy aged three arrived with his family from Bombay and was immediately isolated’.36 Neither of these incidents spread to the

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indigenous population, but they were widely interpreted as a warning sign against complacency. As the CMO’s report put it: ‘These importations again demonstrated the continuing need of the system of health control at sea ports and airports.’ In the aftermath of these scares, complaints about the inadequacy of the health clause of CIA 1962 spread beyond the BMA. For example, the Annual Conference of the Urban District Councils Association, attended by delegates from over 450 of the 564 urban councils in England and Wales, passed a resolution urging that ‘in view of the serious danger to public health, this Association urges the Government to take immediate steps to ensure that all immigrants should be required to pass … a suitable medical examination before being permitted to enter the United Kingdom’.37 In response, the Ministry of Health began to develop a twofold strategy of limited border controls combined with integrationist measures. The first part of the strategy was already in place; hence after CIA 1962 attention turned to policies that would bring immigrant communities within the orbit of the health services. The Government proposed that new arrivals to Britain be issued with an information card detailing health services and encouraging them to register with a local doctor as soon as possible. It was also suggested that Immigration Officers should collect information from arriving immigrants, which would then be passed on to local authorities to follow up. The information card handed to arriving immigrants stressed the need to register with a general practitioner and undergo a free x-ray examination as ‘a safeguard for your health and the health of others’.38 Even these modest proposals met with some opposition from other departments. The Home Office, for example, complained that Immigration Officers were already overburdened and to ask them to hand out cards and obtain names and destinations of all immigrants would be unduly time consuming. Reasonable doubt was also expressed about the efficacy of gathering destination addresses at ports of entry given that many immigrants would not know their future address or would move on from their first destination after a short period of time. The Ministry of Health responded with a reduced scheme under which only those who were referred to Medical Officers for medical examination at ports of entry would receive the card and have their particulars taken. This information would then be forwarded to Medical Officers of Health in the relevant areas. Despite these attenuations, the new scheme was a significant development from the limited provisions of CIA 1962. The Ministry’s approach to public health dimensions of immigration policy was

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broadened from the original focus on protection at borders to a more subtle strategy of medical education and integration. The new approach was captured in a Ministry of Health circular sent to general practitioners during 1963–4: When they settle in this country immigrants, both aliens and Commonwealth citizens, are often very unfamiliar with our customs and, in particular, ignorant of the scope and arrangements of the National Health Service. … The main problem is, therefore, to ensure at an early stage they learn how to use the Health Service and, in particular, for us to secure by voluntary action that those from countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis – particularly from Asia – have a chest x-ray as soon as possible after their arrival in this country.39 Immigrants were now encouraged to take responsibility for their own health and the voluntary nature of their submission to medical examination was emphasized. In part, this was motivated by pragmatism, for even if immigration were peremptorily halted, there were already significant numbers of New Commonwealth citizens living in Britain. As a permanent part of the population, their presence had implications for public health which could not be dealt with by immigration controls. Thus immigrant communities had to be treated as a part of the population rather than simply an exogenous threat to it. At the same time, the attempt to encourage self-regulation by colonial immigrants reflected wider currents in the philosophy of public health.40 For from the late 1950s a new enthusiasm for health education spread through the medical profession, and improvements in public knowledge about sanitation, nutrition, and the availability of health services came to be viewed as essential to the nation’s health.41 If education of the population at large was necessary, it was considered to be all the more so for immigrants because of their assumed lack of medical knowledge and the poor living conditions they often experienced. Indeed, overcrowding in urban areas, where most immigrants settled, was undoubtedly a problem, and slum conditions certainly contributed towards immigrants’ ill-health. A Political and Economic Planning (PEP) investigation into racial discrimination found that only 11 per cent of property advertised to let in London did not specifically exclude black and Asian people. The investigation sent ‘English, Hungarian, and coloured testers’ to the properties that were notionally open and found that two-thirds of ‘coloured applicants’ were excluded

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in practice from their sample of 60 such properties: 40 cases of refusal and 5 cases of higher rent.42 At accommodation bureaux and estate agents similar levels of discrimination were found, and the situation regarding council housing was little better. The National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI) reported that: very few immigrants are currently housed in council property [in comparison to] the white population with similar occupation levels [and] there is evidence that, where immigrants have been housed, they have been housed mainly in the worst accommodation and this is, at least occasionally, as the result of direct discrimination. Officials stated that this was done in order to allay hostile reactions on the part of white residents.43 Hardly surprising, then, that colonial immigrants found themselves concentrated within areas of large cities which were run down, and sometimes due for slum clearance or redevelopment. This fed into a popular mythology about immigrants’ unsanitary behaviour which only exacerbated the already high levels of opposition to the presence of non-white people in many neighbourhoods.44 This mythology was fuelled by newspaper reports in which poor living conditions were insinuated to be the result of immigrants’ poor character and a reflection of their uncivilized ways. The following Sunday Times report was typical: At least fifteen men (no women) lived in one house – four little rooms and a kitchen. Every room but the kitchen had two huge beds covering four-fifths of the floor space, jumbled with reeking grey blankets. The curtains were permanently drawn. It was a little bit of Karachi slum unadulterated in its impurity. In the kitchen, the gas-stove, the sink, the table, the few chairs were miscellaneously sedimented. The occupants were eating grapes, whose pips were spat on the floor. The small patch of garden was the garbage dump. The aggregate weekly income of the tenants could not have been less than £150.45 Sympathetic reports also stressed the importance of poor living conditions on immigrants’ health. For example, following the publication of a pamphlet on immigrant health by the International Union Against Tuberculosis, one local newspaper reported that ‘one point which emerges is that much of the T.B. among immigrants is first contracted

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over here. Bad housing conditions in British cities provide an ideal breeding ground.’46 Whether hostile or sympathetic, virtually all expert commentators agreed that poor living conditions were at least partly responsible for the health problems among immigrant communities. In 1964, the Welfare Officers’ National Association claimed that poor living conditions ‘were causing physical and moral distress … which 10 years ago would have shocked social reformers’, and insisted upon the need for more frequent and stricter health checks in immigrant communities.47 A report on Pakistanis in Bradford argued that immigrants with tuberculosis generally contracted the illness in the United Kingdom, and poor working and living conditions, aggravated by an inadequate diet, were to blame.48 Environmental arguments were also made about venereal diseases. At the Health Visitors’ Association Conference in 1965, the Bradford Superintendent Health Visitor argued that Bradford’s high rate of venereal diseases – over 700 cases reported in 1963 – was not the result of disease importation: ‘There is no evidence that immigrants bring it in, but there is evidence that they are spreading the disease after contact with white prostitutes.’49 While public health experts lent support to the Ministry of Health’s dual strategy, the general tenor of the public debate on immigration and public health was simplistic and tended to emphasize border controls far more than education and integration. Indeed, the frequency and alacrity with which journalists reported the sometimes Dickensian living conditions of immigrants, and the almost inevitable call for compulsory medical examinations, was one of the most consistent aspects of newspaper coverage.50 The cumulative effect must have been to exacerbate the perception of an urban malaise associated with, or even caused by, immigrants. Public health and anti-immigration discourse From an early stage, the perception of colonial immigrants as a threat to public health figured in arguments for more restrictive immigration legislation. This had both a literal and metaphorical dimension: on the one hand, it was claimed that immigration controls were required to prevent the importation of disease; on the other, immigrants were depicted as invaders of the body politic. Few denied that there were genuine public health risks associated with immigration, but the nature of responses often turned on the way in which these risks were framed, in particular on whether they were couched in a language of pollution or contamination. In this section I consider some of the ways

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in which public health threats were articulated in anti-immigration discourse. An early example of public health being used as an argument for immigration controls came from the West Midlands Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, which issued a statement in 1955 that: in view of the overcrowding of large centres of population and the possible effect on public health, this meeting is of the opinion that the Government should take some steps to control immigration into the United Kingdom.51 In particular, the Union was concerned about ‘the number of coloured people and Southern Irish who are coming into the district and who are living in the most insanitary conditions in overcrowded houses’.52 Six years later, this was reflected in the Birmingham City Council elections of May 1961, when the Conservatives issued a pamphlet stating that a reduction in the rate of immigration was necessary because ‘if the influx into Birmingham continues at the rate of recent years, problems related to health and housing which are already serious could become unmanageable’.53 However, at the national level, the Conservative Research Department’s Immigration Policy Group produced a manifesto in 1965 which focused more on better screening for tuberculosis at ports of entry and screening for venereal diseases in country of origin: V.D. being a social disease occurs particularly amongst those with an unsettled way of life. The situation is obviously improved when the family is united. Since the Public Health Services seem adequate to cope, there is no need for specific recommendation, apart from screening before embarkation.54 In Parliament, restrictionist MPs accorded a central place to the public health threat in their arguments for immigration controls. Conversely, the (small) pro-immigrant lobby generally acknowledged that health risks were a legitimate concern, but argued that integrationist policies were the best way of responding to them. The different arguments were set out in two books aimed at the general reader – Lord Elton’s The Unarmed Invasion: A Survey of Afro-Asian Immigration and Norman Pannell and Fenner (now Lord) Brockway’s Immigration: What is the Answer? – which provide a useful window on the debate at the time.55

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Lord Elton’s book was a highly polemical piece about what he called ‘the gravest social crisis since the industrial revolution’.56 He liberally sprinkled his prose with references to the ‘social catastrophes’ and ‘social maladies’ caused by these ‘uninvited strangers’, arguing that this momentous subject was being swept under the carpet by politicians scared of putting it on the public agenda. Disavowing racist motivations, Lord Elton claimed that the fundamental problem was not one of ‘colour’ but of ‘numbers’ (yet he focused almost exclusively on colonial immigrants, whilst saying virtually nothing about immigrants from Ireland or the Old Commonwealth). He described the poor housing conditions experienced by colonial immigrants as a ‘malignant disease of the body politic’ which, although not entirely their fault, was partially caused by their being ‘totally ignorant of our complex housing, rent and mortgage laws’; moreover ‘most of them were accustomed to overcrowding and actually relished it’.57 Elton charged that the Government had ignored the warnings of local authorities and professional organizations, which ‘made it abundantly clear that a serious new risk to health was being created’. He bemoaned the absence of compulsory screening at ports of entry and warned of the disastrous consequences to come. At the same time, Elton acknowledged that the evidence of ill-health among immigrants was ‘sporadic and haphazard’.58 Indeed, it was one of his central complaints that comprehensive data was lacking, and on this point at least, it is hard to disagree with him. The disjunction between the amount of time and ink given over to consideration of this issue and the lack of comprehensive and reliable data is striking (itself a prima facie reason for questioning the accuracy of some of the more hyperbolic assertions made by figures such as Elton and Pannell). Despite his admission as to the lack of data, Elton claimed that both tuberculosis and venereal diseases were endemic among colonial immigrants. He stated that by the mid-1950s ‘already there had been reports … of the prevalence of tuberculosis and venereal disease among the immigrants’, and by 1963 these reports were becoming increasingly ‘numerous and disquieting’.59 Part of the problem was a lack of familiarity with ‘English ways’ combined with an unwillingness to adapt: there is no doubt that the Asians make small attempt to become little Englishmen. Some of the Pakistanis had been in Britain twenty-five years and spoke scarcely a dozen words of English, I had learned. … The Asians shun guidance. One social worker said: ‘I know some riddled with V.D. But I can practically never persuade

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them to see a doctor. They want nothing from us at all – except work.60 Although Lord Elton acknowledged the positive contribution of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff from the Commonwealth, quoting a recent Parliamentary statement that up to 40 per cent of doctors up to consultant level were from the Commonwealth,61 he inverted this potentially positive assessment by claiming that reliance on migrant labour was detrimental in the long-run because it stymied the development of domestic labour markets: Can it be seriously maintained that in the Britain of today it is wholly beyond our unaided powers to keep the buses on the road, Tube trains moving, the hospitals staffed or the more disagreeable industrial tasks handled? Would it be beyond us in time of war?62 Reliance on ‘immigrant doctors’ had prevented effective organization of the health services that otherwise would have had to occur. We owed these contributors our ‘respect and gratitude’ but they could be ‘no more than a largely irrelevant parenthesis in any discussion of the economic pros and cons of mass immigration’.63 Besides, any shortterm gains would eventually be offset by the ‘fact’ that immigrants were as a whole cost-inducing – through demands made on the social services, health expenditure, specialist teachers, and so on. Elton was steadfast in his belief that the net effect of immigration on public health, as on society as a whole, was negative. The upshot of all this was that if ‘the intrinsic perils of the immigration’ were to be avoided, colonial immigration had to be entirely halted. Unlike Elton’s polemic, Pannell and Brockway’s book was intended to present both sides of the debate. Pannell recounted similar arguments to Elton: ‘the great invasion’ of post-war immigrants now required total restriction. He ran through the usual arguments about tuberculosis and venereal diseases, saying of the former that ‘overcrowded and insanitary conditions induce tuberculosis, particularly amongst Indian and Pakistanis, whose physique renders them especially prone to this disease in the comparatively harsh climate of this country’. In general, immigrants’ ill-health ‘add[s] up to a pretty formidable debit item in the immigrant balance sheet’. Pannell urged the Government to insist on certificates of health, to be issued in countries of origin, and argued that ‘no person [be] admitted if suffering from

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any communicable disease’. In the final analysis, however, ‘coloured immigration on any scale must cease’.64 Fenner Brockway’s contribution is in many ways more interesting, for it allows us to gauge how an anti-restrictionist responded to the anxiety about the public health and immigration. Brockway began his argument by setting out the grounds on which democratic governments legitimately exclude would-be migrants: ‘each government has the immediate duty of protecting the conditions of life of its own population, and, therefore, to control immigration according to the ability of its economy to receive more people’.65 In addition, immigration controls could be imposed to prevent excessive over-population, saturation of labour markets, and threats to public health. The question, as Brockway saw it, was whether colonial immigration threatened the ‘conditions of life’ of the British population through overcrowding, unemployment or ill-health. His answer (with some caveats) was negative on all three counts. Although overcrowding did exist in some areas where immigrants settled, they, no less than indigenous residents, were primarily the victims of inadequate housing and slum clearance programmes. The economy could not only afford to absorb more migrant labour, in certain sectors it actively needed it. For example, he claimed that colonial immigrants had ‘saved the National Health Service’ and were essential in various other parts of the economy.66 Brockway discussed immigrants’ health at some length (nine pages of his sixty-page essay are given over to the subject). First, he reiterated the legitimacy of immigration controls on health grounds: ‘it is recognised that governments have the right to control immigration in the interest of the health of their peoples and most do so in some form or another’, citing the examples of the United States and Canada, both of which insisted on medical examinations. Second, he acknowledged the disproportionate incidence of venereal diseases among West Indians and of tuberculosis among South Asians, especially Pakistanis. These ‘disturbing’ figures led to his prescriptive recommendation that ‘there is … clearly a case for improving immigration control in relation to disease’ as well as for improving living conditions and educating immigrants as to the availability of health services. Thus, in his overall conclusion Brockway stated that: ‘we have found that there is ground for further control to protect health, particularly because of the extent of tuberculosis among immigrants’.67 The extent of this disease was ‘serious’ but rather than simply advocating the need for health checks at ports of entry, Brockway recommended a raft of integrationist

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measures. In particular, he proposed the appointment of health inspectors to certain towns to combat disease among immigrants, citing Bradford City Council’s employment of two public health inspectors ‘to deal with the problems arising among its Pakistani population of 12,000, a high proportion of whom suffer from tuberculosis’ as an example of good practice.68 Brockway’s reference to Bradford was significant because the city had recently been the site of an immigrant-related health scare. According to the local MP, Arthur Tiley, Bradford was an ‘outward looking’ community that had ‘benefitted [sic] from the influx of people from other lands’, but an outbreak of smallpox had turned it into ‘a live volcano’; after the health scare a ‘racial battle’ threatened to erupt.69 The incident began with the death of a Pakistani child, who had recently arrived from Karachi to join her father. The pathologist who performed the autopsy on the child contracted the disease and died soon after. Bradford was sealed off and a mass vaccination scheme implemented. Tiley credited Enoch Powell, then Minister of Health, and the local Medical Officer of Health with acting swiftly and thus preventing a major outbreak of hostility towards immigrants: ‘There would have been race riots of great severity if Enoch Powell had not made certain of a constant supply of vaccine’. Tiley reported that ‘much to Bradford’s credit, there were only two outbursts against the Pakistanis’ and added that the local paper, the Telegraph & Argus, acted responsibly to counteract ‘the scare head-lines of the National Dailies’. He concluded: ‘It is important that this lesson should never be forgotten’.70 What exactly was the lesson of this incident? If Tiley’s account is to be believed (contemporary newspaper reports do bear out his version of events) then two points can be extracted from this local example: first, it would be churlish in the face of such incidents to deny that there were public health risks associated with immigration and, ipso facto, it would be wrong to deny that there were reasonable grounds for concern; second, the incident in Bradford shows that the spread of communicable diseases from immigrants to UK-born persons had genuine potential to create tensions within communities where immigrants were settled. Tiley believed that ‘health and hygiene’ was one of the two main causes of ‘trouble’ between immigrant and indigenous communities in Bradford (the other was housing conditions).71 In this light, integrationist and educational health measures could properly be seen as part of the wider integration agenda aimed at improving race relations.

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The dual strategy consolidated While incidents like the one in Bradford fuelled the fire of restrictionists, the Ministry of Health pressed ahead with its integrationist approach to public health. If the medical profession wanted more stringent border controls, they were nevertheless supportive of the Ministry of Health’s emphasis on health education and the dissemination of information to immigrants. In an important study of tuberculosis among Asian immigrants, F. Ridehalgh, a consultant chest physician at Churchill Hospital, Oxford, concluded that the problem was best tackled by ‘voluntary action’. In particular, he recommended that the information card encouraging immigrants to register with a GP and undergo x-ray examination be printed in Urdu and Pakistani as well as in English.72 Integration was also endorsed by other government departments, notably the Ministry of Labour, which conducted an assessment of the ‘social and economic effects of coloured immigration’ during 1963–5 and concluded that: Immigrants impose in relation to their numbers a relatively heavy burden on the National Health Service. … There is evidence that a number of Asian immigrants arrive suffering from tuberculosis, and there is a need to encourage immigrants to take advantage of the health and welfare services that are available to help them. A considerable part of the increased incidence of gonorrhoea is also attributable to coloured immigrants. Moreover, being unaccustomed to the British way of life and often ignorant of the language, immigrants take up a lot of the time of those who have to deal with them both in hospital and out of it. The difference between their needs and those of our own people, however, is one of degree rather than kind. The only special measures needed within the community relate to the difficulty in communication, such as the need for interpreters and translations. More trained social workers in the local authority and voluntary services would help to solve the difficulties in the areas in which immigrants tend to concentrate. … A number of Commonwealth immigrants come here as doctors or nurses, and their contribution is a considerable one which must not be overlooked in making a full assessment.73 Implementation of the integrationist strategy required the cooperation of local authorities and Medical Officers of Health. To this end, the Ministry of Health wrote to local authorities to request that they help enact its ‘proposals to integrate long-stay immigrants into the NHS’.74

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In a letter to the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Urban and Rural Districts Councils Associations, and the London Country Council, the Ministry insisted that: The really practical problem is … to ensure that as soon as possible they [colonial immigrants] learn how to use our health service properly and in particular we need to secure by voluntary action that those from countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis – particularly from Asia – have a chest x-ray as soon as possible after entry into the country.75 Those authorities that replied were mostly in agreement with policies aimed at education and integration, but they also emphasized the need for checks at ports of entry. The response of Seisdon Council was typical: ‘half a loaf is better than none … [but] … we do not think that the old Empire Concept of unfettered access into the Mother Country should be allowed to prevail where increased dangers of disease are involved without something concrete being done’.76 Overall, the responses revealed a tension between central government strategy, which placed greater emphasis on education and integration, and local government, which was intent on compulsory checks on those seeking to enter the country. In addition, some of the local councils consulted thought that the Ministry of Health, driven by considerations of cost and diplomacy, was seeking to devolve the responsibility for immigrants’ health onto them. Again, the response of Seisdon Council was broadly representative: ‘if immigrants require x-ray etc. it should be done by or as a result of decisive Central Government action and not by passing such responsibility to General Practitioners at the Periphery’.77 In sum, although there was broad support for integrationist measures at the local level there was also frustration at the Ministry’s refusal to impose compulsory medical examinations. Although the Ministry continued to stonewall on the issue of compulsory checks, it nevertheless sought to improve border controls. In September 1963, a review of the facilities for examining immigrants at London Airport, which was becoming an increasingly important port of entry, was commissioned. A research party led by Lord Newton, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, visited the Health Control Unit at the airport. In his report, Lord Newton recommended that x-ray equipment should be available in situ so that onthe-spot inspections of persons suspected of tuberculosis infection could be undertaken (previously, suspected persons had been taken to

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Hillingdon Hospital for tests).78 These recommendations were agreed in principle, but due to opposition from Heathrow staff and the Ministry of Aviation (over the creation of delays and logistical problems of space) work on the new x-ray unit was delayed until November. While construction was underway, the controversy about compulsion continued. In a House of Lords debate on the medical inspection of immigrants, Lord Colwyn asked Lord Taylor, who spoke for the Government, ‘whether, before they come here, they [immigrants] have a medical inspection to see whether they have T.B. or venereal diseases’. Lord Taylor responded that they did not: no statutory provision existed for pre-embarkation screening, and ‘it might very well be undesirable to try to do so, for many of these countries are extremely short of medical facilities, and they might in fact be rather inefficiently examined’. He went on to explain the work begun at London Airport to install an x-ray unit, but was quizzed by Baroness Sumerskill about the proportion of immigrants who were currently examined, and then by Lord Wakefield of Kendal about the possibility of discriminating between Old and New Commonwealth immigrants so that the former could undergo examinations in their country of origin and for the latter ‘other steps could be taken’. Lord Taylor, evidently rankled, responded: I think we must have a little common sense about this. Let medical examination be voluntarily offered to people who are coming in. We know that there are certain types of people who are liable to have certain types of infection. Let it be voluntarily explained to them what the problems are; let the service be offered, and let them be told that they can be treated and made better while they are here. Further than that I should not like to go.79 The x-ray unit finally became operational in February 1965.80 Selected immigrants were first examined by a doctor, then submitted for x-ray if tuberculosis was suspected. In the first nine months of operation (from 12 February to 10 November 1965) a total of 11,814 immigrants entered through London Airport, of whom 1,646 were x-rayed. A total of 26 were subsequently found to be suffering from tuberculosis: 1.58 per cent of those x-rayed or 0.22 per cent of total arrivals. Immigrants from India, Pakistan, and ‘Other Asian’ countries accounted for 22 out of the 26 cases (85 per cent).81

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Venereal diseases So far we have focused on the role of tuberculosis in public health and immigration policy-making. What of venereal diseases, which were identified in section two as having also figured in the immigration debate? The two major diseases of concern were syphilis and gonorrhoea. In considering syphilis, a distinction needs to be made between early, late and congenital forms of the disease. After a period of decline in reported cases, infectious or early syphilis increased from 1958. Two major factors were held to account for this: ‘homosexual practices’ and importation from abroad by mariners. In his report for 1962 the Chief Medical Officer noted ‘the importance of homosexual practices in the spread of syphilis’ and claimed that: these cases, and those in which seamen had contracted infection abroad, accounted to some extent for the considerable disparity between the numbers of cases found in males and in females. The figures indicate that the disparity between males and females has increased slightly, which suggests that these two sources of infection are still important in maintaining an infection which might otherwise be approaching the point of extinction.82 The following year, the Co-operative Clinical Group of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases undertook a study of the distribution of early syphilis cases across ‘the various racial groups’ and found that 62.6 per cent of cases occurred in persons born in the United Kingdom, 6.6 per cent in West Indians, and 30.7 per cent in ‘other immigrants’.83 The incidence of late syphilis, both latent and manifest, was in decline during 1961–2, although significantly the Chief Medical Officer remarked that: returns from the clinics give no information as to the countries of origin of patients to whom the diagnosis of late latent syphilis was attached, but past experience suggests that many of these patients may have been immigrants. It is well known that positive serological tests for syphilis without physical signs are much more commonly found among immigrants from the Commonwealth than in the local population.84 Congenital syphilis was in decline prior to 1961, but then began to increase in that year: ‘a contributory factor in the increase was thought

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to be the greater number of women immigrants, particularly from the West Indies, attending the antenatal clinics; but in spite of this the percentage incidence fell again in 1962’.85 The overall picture that emerges is one in which colonial immigrants, particularly from the Caribbean, were widely associated with the incidence of the various forms of syphilis. Gonorrhoea was, if anything, even more closely associated with immigrants. From 1954 to 1961 there was a ‘considerable and consistent rise in the numbers of cases’, followed by a slight check in 1962, then figures began to increase again, albeit less rapidly than before. Immigrants were considered a major factor in the increase of cases from 1954 to 1961, as the following statement from the Chief Medical Officer’s Report for 1962 indicates: ‘apart from a reduction in the number of new immigrants the circumstances to which the increase was attributed have undergone no change’.86 From 1961, the Co-operative Clinical Group of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases undertook an annual survey of the incidence of gonorrhoea by ‘racial group’. In 1961 it concluded that non-white immigrants were represented among cases of gonorrhoea to a degree out of all proportion to their size in the population at large. Information was gathered from 150 clinics in England and Wales, which revealed that West Indian males made up 27.3 per cent of all cases in men and Asians 6.8 per cent. The figure among West Indians was a massive increase from 1952, when a similar study had found that West Indian males made up 3 per cent of all cases in men. For women, UK-born females comprised 82 per cent, West Indian females 9.8 per cent, and 8.2 per cent were from ‘other countries’. Once again, the figure for West Indians showed a large increase on 1952 when the incidence had been 0.5 per cent. This level of disproportionate representation increased further the following year.87 By then the Chief Medical Officer appeared resigned to these figures: ‘it is perhaps too much to hope that that there will be a considerable reduction in the incidence of gonorrhoea while the present movement of population continues’.88 And in 1964: ‘increased speed of travel, especially by air, and itinerant groups, such as migrants and seafarers, promoted transfer of infection between countries and continents’.89 In an attempt to tackle the increase in venereal diseases, a network of specialized clinics was created, and educational programmes were developed by the Central Council for Health Education and, after 1968, the Health Education Council.90 The Chief Medical Officer’s unabashed conclusion in his annual report for 1963 announced that

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‘there is, however, scope for further propaganda of this kind’.91 And in 1964 he was even more explicit: There is a pressing need to inform all sections of the public about these diseases and their dangers. This kind of propaganda is always difficult because it is apt to stir neurotic anxieties rather than influence sexual behaviour or bring the infected under treatment.92 The propaganda effort was intensified from the mid-1960s, as posters with information about venereal diseases and local clinics were put up in town halls, public libraries, public lavatories, and even Post Offices, and social workers and probation officers were instructed to disseminate information. At no stage, however, was this programme publicly targeted at immigrants. Despite the growing evidence that immigrants, especially those from the Caribbean, were disproportionately affected by venereal diseases, the Government did not launch specific initiatives comparable to those for tuberculosis. It is not clear how to explain this divergence. Possibly it was due to the deeply controversial nature of the debate about the causes of the increase in venereal diseases, in which the Government was generally reluctant to become embroiled. Given the taboos surrounding the subject, any targeted campaign would have further stigmatized immigrants and would likely have incurred charges of discrimination by pro-immigrant campaigners, while providing further grist to the mill of restrictionists. Alternatively, the Government’s reluctance may have been due to the nature of the diseases themselves. While tuberculosis was easily identifiable, venereal diseases were harder to diagnose and treat due to individuals’ reluctance to come forward for tests; an immigrant-specific campaign might well have stirred up the kind of ‘neurotic anxieties’ mentioned by the Chief Medical Officer, and lessened rather then increased the likelihood of voluntary compliance by immigrants. Moreover, tuberculosis could easily spread among the population at large, while the limited extent of sexual interaction between immigrants and the host population (see Chapter 5) meant that venereal diseases were less likely to spread widely.

4 Immigration, public health and the closing door, 1965–8 During the second half of the 1960s the dual strategy on public health and immigration was intensified and extended. This strategy fitted well

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with the Wilson Government’s wider approach to immigration through its limitation-integration equation, but the new alacrity with which it was pursued was primarily driven by a growing volume of evidence on the health of immigrants, particularly the high incidence of tuberculosis among South Asians,93 which forced the issue further up the political agenda. In June 1965, Sir Cyril Osborne (Con.), planned a Ten Minute Rule Motion for leave to bring a Bill which would force primary immigrants and dependants to produce certificates of medical examination as a condition of entry. This caused significant consternation in the Government, which evidently feared politicization of the issue. In particular, the Home Office was worried that if there was a division the Government would be ‘faced with the probability of misinterpretation whether they voted against the Motion as inopportune or abstained on the ground that in the light of the recommendations of the Mountbatten Mission they might themselves wish to introduce some form of health control’.94 In the event, Osborne was persuaded to withdraw his Motion, quite possibly by reassurance about future policy. Indeed, in 1965 public health figured prominently in the Government’s White Paper on immigration. Prior to this the Mountbatten Report (see Chapter 2) recommended that ‘all immigrants, their dependants and students should have to pass a health check under the supervision of the British High Commission in their country of origin’.95 This proposal for medical examinations before embarkation was not a new idea, but it was the first time that such a suggestion had been made in a government-sponsored publication, and it would gain further adherents over the next three years. The BMA in particular had previously recommended examinations in country of origin and the issue of a certificate of good health as early as 1962.96 Its Representative Body again passed a resolution to this effect in July 1964, and then late in 1965 its Working Party on the Medical Examination of Immigrants confirmed that examination in country of origin was the BMA’s official recommendation.97 The endorsement of this perspective in the Mountbatten Report was a significant development, for although the report had a limited immediate impact, it added to the groundswell of opinion supportive of health checks before embarkation. Even more important, however, was the proposal to move in this direction contained in the White Paper just two months later. The White Paper devoted considerable attention to the subject of immigration and public health. The Government sought first to allay fears about the level of risk, insisting that ‘immigration has not created

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a serious public health hazard’.98 It nevertheless made reference to instances of infectious diseases among immigrants, particularly pulmonary tuberculosis. It reported on the fact that immigrants arriving through London Airport were now x-rayed at the Health Control Unit but acknowledged the need for further action. The two major policy proposals extended each dimension of the dual strategy. On the one hand, it was announced that in future immigrants would normally be expected to produce evidence of having undergone a medical test in their own country, and arrangements to implement this were put under review.99 On the other hand, the White Paper stated that action would be taken to require immigrants, including dependants, to report to a local Medical Officer of Health with a view to necessary medical treatment being arranged. Other integrationist measures were also set out, including calls for the increased employment of ‘suitable members of the immigrant communities themselves to work as health visitors, home nurses or midwives [and] welfare officers’,100 extra funding for hospitals in poor areas, and financial assistance for local authorities with significant numbers of immigrants in their jurisdiction. In addition, a National Council for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI) was formed with a remit to advise on ‘matters relating to the integration of Commonwealth immigrants in the United Kingdom’.101 Initially chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the NCCI would produce reports on matters such as health, housing, education, and racial discrimination, and act as a lobby group for immigrants’ interests. In sum, the White Paper both strengthened medical checks at the border and enhanced the programme of integrationist measures. Then, from 1965 onwards, the Ministry of Health’s official policy pronouncements on the integration of immigrants into public health initiatives were given teeth. The aim, which had been announced in 1963 but not yet put into practice, was to promote immigrants’ awareness of health services and induce a degree of self-surveillance, in the words of one civil servant, to ‘bring the health service to bear on immigrants’.102 From now on, immigrants selected for examination by Medical Officers were handed an information card printed in six languages, advising them to register with an NHS doctor as soon as possible. Destination addresses were taken and given to local Medical Officers of Health (although the Chief Medical Officer’s report for that year suggests that this was less than wholly successful).103 Letters were sent out to GPs and Medical Officers of Health explaining that certain colonial immigrants were particularly susceptible to tuberculosis, and doctors were advised to x-ray all those coming from countries known

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to have a high incidence rate, namely, India and Pakistan. In addition, the following year integration into the health services was given financial support by the Local Government Act of 1966. Under Section 11 of the Act special grants could be made to local authorities that were ‘required to make special provision in the exercise of any of their functions in consequence of the presence within their areas of substantial numbers of immigrants from the Commonwealth whose language or customs differ from those of the community’. This was particularly intended to cover the cost of employing additional, specially-trained staff in a wide range of services under local authorities’ jurisdiction, including hospitals, schools, and social services.104 The employment of interpreters, specially appointed teachers, liaison and welfare staff could form the basis of a claim for a grant. In the case of hospitals most claims were expected to be for interpreters. None of this was fully satisfactory for the BMA, however, which claimed that the measures were likely to be ineffectual in reducing cases of tuberculosis and placed too great a burden on local services, especially GPs. Medical examinations at ports of entry continued throughout this period, which actually began to yield more robust data on the extent of the public health risk. Table 6.1 reports the number of Commonwealth citizens who were examined and the number refused permission to land on health grounds or reported to local Medical Officers of Health between 1962 and 1968. Perhaps the most striking aspect of these data is the relatively small number of people who were actually refused entry: in any one year never much above 1 for every 10,000 entrants.105 If colonial immigrants were indeed over-represented among notifications for certain diseases, particularly tuberculosis, the number found to be a sufficient threat to public health so as to be refused permission to land was relatively small. Whilst such arrangements were inadequate for the BMA and parts of the national press because they were not stringent enough, for others the examinations were unjustifiably intrusive. In this, as in other regards, the Wilson Government had not only to satisfy restrictionists but also placate the small yet vocal body of liberals and immigrant campaigners.106 The 1967 Annual Report of the National Council for Civil Liberties criticized the entry procedure as unfair on both immigrants and immigration officers. Immigrants were subjected to interrogations over long periods, interpretation was inadequate, and children had been detained for several days pending enquiries as to their right of entry. Furthermore, the report argued that the x-ray and medical examinations, along with ‘challenges to one’s language,

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Table 6.1 Year

1962** 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968

Commonwealth citizens medically examined, refused entry, and reported, 1962–8

Number of Commonwealth citizens arriving*

192,370 406,720 451,231 480,026 486,035 481,439 537,405

Number medically examined

6,823 31,436 16,929 17,294 15,340 20,733 53,327

% medically examined

3.5 7.7 3.8 3.6 3.2 4.3 9.9

Number refused permission to land for medical reasons 12 22 8 48 50 58 59

% of those examined refused

% of total refused

Number of medical reports made

0.2 0.7 0.05 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.1

0.006 0.005 0.002 0.010 0.010 0.012 0.011

113 216 138 226 201 167 †

% of those examined reported

1.7 0.7 0.8 1.3 1.3 0.8 –

% of total reported

0.06 0.05 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.03 –

These figures include both immigrants, defined as Commonwealth citizens intending to settle in the United Kingdom, and Commonwealth citizens entering the country temporarily. Moreover, they include both Old and New Commonwealth citizens. The figures for New Commonwealth immigrants were much lower – less than half of the total figure of Commonwealth citizens arriving for this period. ** Six months from July 1, when CIA 1962 came into operation. † Inexplicably, the number of medical reports made in 1968 is not given, although the process does appear to have continued as there is mention in the accompanying text of the procedure at London Airport, where, of a total of 9,589 immigrants x-rayed, 38 were refused entry and 37 reports were made. Source: Adapted from annual reports of the Chief Medical Officer and the Ministry of Health (London: HMSO, 1962–8). *

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background and family situation’ were humiliating and degrading.107 Although this strain of opinion was very much in the minority during the restrictionist atmosphere of the late 1960s, it further explains why the Government was reluctant to make examinations a compulsory condition of entry. The dual strategy of medical examinations and integrationist measures was cemented by the second Commonwealth Immigrants Act (CIA 1968). As we saw in Chapter 2, this legislation was rushed through in a panicked atmosphere caused by the predicted influx of Kenyan Asians, as the Kenyatta Government persecuted ethnic minorities under the guise of an ‘Africanization’ programme. CIA 1968 abolished the right of Kenyan Asian CUKCs to migrate to Britain by adding a new condition for entry: the ‘qualifying connection’ that only a person, or the child or grandchild of a person, born, naturalized or adopted in the United Kingdom could enter the country to settle. As far as health was concerned, CIA 1968 still did not institute the compulsory checks that the BMA and others continued to lobby for, but it did increase the powers of medical inspectors at ports of entry, as well as widening the range of those subject to medical examination. The two major changes concerned dependants and the procedure for reporting to Medical Officers of Health. From 1968, dependants could be medically examined at the port of entry, and immigration officers were granted the power to make entry to the country subject to the condition that an immigrant report to a designated Medical Officer of Health if ‘it appears to him to be necessary to do so in the interests of public health’.108 Although they could now be medically examined, dependants, unlike primary immigrants, could not be refused entry if they were found to be in need of medical attention. The Government remained reluctant to impose compulsory health checks and was unwilling to sanction a situation in which a sick dependant could be prevented from joining her or his family. In his report for 1968, the Chief Medical Officer of Health commented that one of the advantages of the new arrangements was that: the onus to report is placed on the immigrant, thereby, in theory at all events, relieving the health authorities of the task of tracing the new arrival. Secondly when an immigrant in need of medical attention is not to be refused entry, because for example he or she is a dependant, conditional admission is a means of ensuring that appropriate action can be taken.109

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He further noted that from March 1968 to the end of that year, 196 such conditional admissions were made and that ‘the medical officers of health concerned indicate that the arrangements appear to be working satisfactorily’. In addition, the Department of Health and Social Security (as it was now known) reported that progress had been made on the 1965 White Paper’s proposal for the medical examination of prospective migrants in their country of origin. By the end of the year the arrangements were completed in all the Commonwealth countries concerned, so that migrants could choose to be examined before departure for the United Kingdom.110

5

Conclusion

Every major government measure on colonial immigration during the 1960s attended to its public health implications. This is not a quirk of post-war British history but a reflection of the fact that immigration invariably raises questions about public health. We have seen that colonial immigration to Britain was widely perceived as a threat to public health, and that a dual strategy of medical examination at ports of entry and integrationist measures was developed in response to this. This strategy combined an attempt to limit the number of immigrants who presented a health risk from entering the country with education and propaganda to integrate immigrant communities into the health services. British Governments of the 1960s, both Conservative and Labour, were reluctant to accede to the demands of various groups, including the BMA, for compulsory medical examinations as a condition of entry to the country. As we shall see in the concluding chapter, the debate about compulsion continues today.

7 The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change

1

Introduction

At the start of the twenty-first century immigration is once again at the top of the political agenda. Across Europe, migration policies are in a state of flux,1 with stemming strategies being supplanted by mixed soliciting strategies in the face of demographic and economic change. In Britain, the restriction of primary colonial immigrants in the 1960s and early 1970s began a long pause in immigration, but by the late 1990s this had palpably come to an end, with net migration in excess of 100,000. This was partly an outcome of government initiatives for voluntary migrants, partly the result of increased asylum applications. Whilst policy-making elites create more open immigration regimes, opposition to immigration – both voluntary and forced – has increased in scope and intensity. If the shift from stemming to soliciting strategies represents a significant change from the period of colonial immigration, there are also notable continuities. In particular, the current debates about immigration’s impact on the population, particularly in terms of welfare and public health effects, bear many similarities with earlier debates about colonial immigration. Allegations of welfare scrounging are alive and well, whilst controversy over the public health impact of immigration has been reinvigorated and a new disease – HIV – has joined tuberculosis as a focus of concern. As I observed in Chapter 1, the historical precedents for many of these contemporary debates are poorly understood; hopefully the preceding chapters have gone some way towards rectifying this gap in our knowledge. In this final chapter, I turn briefly to consider the contemporary politics of immigration and demographic change. A comprehensive treatment of the issues is not 179

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possible here; rather, my aim is to sketch the major contours of current political debate, outline recent policy developments and their drivers, and suggest directions for future research.

2

Citizenship and belonging renegotiated

In Chapter 2, I showed how the British Nationality Act of 1981 (BNA 1981) established a distinct British citizenship, defined in terms of descent. From a constitutional point of view, the turn from a tradition of jus soli to jus sanguinis was a fundamental departure in law; from a socio-political point of view it was equally momentous. BNA 1981 resolved the tension between membership of the political community and the national community by mapping citizenship onto a restrictive idea of belonging. This marked the end of a period in which immigration legislation had been used to differentiate rights within the imperial citizenship of CUKC. It also represented the beginning of a new post-imperial chapter in the story of citizenship and belonging. While citizenship (and its attendant rights) was stripped from most inhabitants of colonial and Commonwealth countries, thus severing the constitutional tie that had facilitated colonial immigration, those who had migrated between the late 1940s and the 1970s were now a permanent feature of British society. With minority ethnic communities part of the social fabric it remained to be seen how the reality of Britain as a multiethnic polity would affect future conceptions of citizenship and belonging. The decade following BNA 1981 was not promising in this regard. Insofar as the Thatcher Governments had a conception of citizenship, it was resolutely individualist and consumerist. Despite, or perhaps because of, the official ‘colour-blindness’ of neo-liberal discourse, this conception of citizenship was wholly inadequate when it came to considering the dilemmas of multiculturalism, let alone the existence of widespread racism in British society. At the same time as citizenship withered on the vine, exclusive and racialized conceptions of belonging and national identity flourished. An ‘imagery of black settlement as an invasion’ predominated and a Powellite language of ‘unassimilated populations’ and ‘alien wedges’ was not uncommon from the Thatcher Governments.2 In Parliamentary debates shortly after BNA 1981, British nationality was discussed in openly racialized terms and the entry of the few non-white Commonwealth citizens who retained the legal right to immigrate was opposed.3 This was hardly surprising given the attitudes of senior party figures and the Prime Minister

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herself. Infamously, in 1978, Margaret Thatcher made a televised comment that she thought people were ‘really rather afraid that the country might be swamped by people with a different culture’ while Norman Tebbit, the Conservative Party Chairman, proposed a loyalty test for immigrants based on which cricket team they cheered for.4 In the midst of all this, some initiatives were made towards re-imagining Britain as a multicultural community (notably in the field of education, where multicultural policies were developed by certain Local Education Authorities and, at the national level, in the 1985 Swann Report) but such developments were generally ignored or even actively opposed by those in government.5 All of this is a far cry from recent years. Citizenship has become something of a buzzword and a conscious ‘rebranding’ of Britishness was even attempted in the late 1990s.6 Policy innovations across a range of areas, from the national curriculum to social exclusion, have been organized and justified by reference to citizenship. In a political culture traditionally sceptical of philosophical ideas, this is a significant development.7 Just as the concept of citizenship has enjoyed a new vogue in recent years, so have questions of belonging and Britishness. Driven by a complex interaction of factors, including the search for a post-imperial role, European integration, devolution to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as a belated recognition of Britain’s multicultural society, the attempts at rethinking British national identity also represent a departure. A recurring theme in the recent debates about national identity is how uncertain and indeterminate informal notions of Britishness are. As a multinational state with an increasingly diverse population and no strong tradition of substantive citizenship discourse, Britain has failed ‘to identify a distinct national notion of belonging’.8 This can, however, be viewed in a positive light. For compared to the strong secularism of the French notion of citizenship or the ethno-cultural understanding of German nationality, to give two important continental European examples, it is arguable that the British ‘failure’ offers more promising ground for the development of conceptions of citizenship and belonging that permit of a genuine multiracialism and multiculturalism. In other words, Britain is potentially well-placed to develop a concept of citizenship that encompasses multiple modes of belonging. The first signs of a revitalized theory and practice of citizenship appeared in the formation of a cross-party Commission on Citizenship in the late 1980s.9 The commission was set up to consider how citizens might be enabled to participate more fully and effectively in both

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formal and informal political processes. Its 1990 report, Encouraging Citizenship, focuses on practical ways to strengthen ‘participatory arrangements’ to achieve what it calls ‘active citizenship’.10 Although the report acknowledges the development of Britain as a multiracial society, it says remarkably little about the implications of this for the task at hand. This reflects the essentially Marshallian conception of citizenship adopted by the commissioners – a conception which entails, in Marshall’s words, a ‘direct sense of community membership based on loyalty to a civilisation which is a common possession’ (see Chapter 4 above). The report endorses this ‘traditional British analysis of citizenship’, in which citizenship is partly constituted by civil, political and social rights and duties, partly by ‘belonging to a community’;11 but it does not examine exactly what this ‘community’ or ‘civilization’ amounts to in a newly diverse society.12 In other words, the report fails to consider whether and how citizenship should be rethought in the light of increasingly complex modes of belonging. Given that community membership is described as ‘a cultural achievement, a gift of history’ a retrograde and unproblematic notion of belonging seems to be implied.13 But it is precisely this idea (or more accurately, this cluster of ideas) that has been problematized by the diversification brought about by colonial immigration. In sum, the implicit ethnocentrism of the Commission’s attempt to rejuvenate the concept of citizenship in British politics failed to take sufficient account of the diverse nature of British society. Since the Labour Government came to power in 1997, a more active rethinking of the ideas of citizenship and belonging, and their interrelation, has been underway. The Government’s first major initiative on immigration, the 1998 White Paper, Fairer, Firmer, Faster, states that ‘the Government believes that more should be done to promote citizenship positively amongst the immigrant population, reflecting the multi-cultural and multi-racial society which we have become’ and it contains some modest proposals to speed up the process of applying for citizenship.14 However, it was only with the 2002 White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, that the implications of diversity for citizenship were fleshed out. The White Paper explicitly acknowledges that British citizenship encompasses a variety of different modes of belonging to the political community. ‘Common citizenship’, it argues, ‘is not about cultural uniformity, nor is it born out of some narrow and out-dated view of what it means to be “British”’.15 Compared to previous Governments’ statements on such matters this suggests a refreshing and radical ap-

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proach to the relationship between political membership and national identity. On closer inspection, however, the White Paper also reveals an ongoing commitment to well-worn modes of thought. In his foreword, the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, states his commitment to the limitation-integration equation: ‘to ensure that we sustain the positive contribution of migration to our social well-being and economic prosperity, we need to manage it properly and build firmer foundations on which integration with diversity can be achieved’. In order to enable integration and value diversity, he argued, ‘we need to be secure in our sense of belonging and identity and therefore be able to reach out and embrace those who come to the UK’. This requires a ‘robust nationality and asylum system’ as well as positive measures to promote integration.16 Nevertheless, the Executive Summary goes on to assert that ‘our society is based on cultural difference, rather than assimilation to a prevailing monoculture’ and it insists on the need for a ‘common citizenship, which embraces the different and diverse experiences of today’s Britain’.17 The White Paper views this common citizenship as, in effect, membership of a civic community defined in terms of language and civic knowledge; and it proposes that the acquisition of citizenship therefore requires a certain standard in the English language as well as education in political and social institutions. These conceptual changes are given concrete form, notably in the proposal for a citizenship ceremony with a modernized oath demonstrating not just allegiance to the Queen, but also a commitment to ‘uphold democratic values’,18 as well as tests to ensure that those acquiring British citizenship have an adequate command of the English language and ‘an appreciation of our democratic processes’ so that they are able ‘to take their full place in society’.19 Whilst it might be argued that the commitment to English language retains an ethnic bias,20 compared to previous (Marshallian) conceptions of citizenship which embodied a ‘thick’ notion of identity, there can be little doubt that this is a much ‘thinner’ conception, and as such it can plausibly be described as the beginnings of a genuinely integrative ideal (in the event, the tests, and the classes that would have led up to them, were dropped because of opposition from the Treasury, although the citizenship ceremony remains). This thinner theory of citizenship allows for different modes of belonging to co-exist within it. It therefore offers a potential way to reconcile diversity with full membership of the political community. Before moving on, it is important to note that although the Labour Government has begun to sketch a new, multicultural picture of

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citizenship, there remain tensions in its policies and overall approach to this and related subjects. In a recent article, one group of scholars argue that ‘despite New Labour’s gestures towards cultural diversity and inclusion, its body politic beats to the rhythm of a white heart’; what we are witnessing, they claim, is a ‘return of assimilation’.21 If this is a harsh judgement, there are grounds for it. As with the Labour Governments of the 1960s and 1970s, in its attempt to steer a course between its liberal and conservative bases of support, the current Government has often adopted reactionary positions. For example, its reluctance to make too bold a stand on multiculturalism was evident in its response to the controversy surrounding the 2000 report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, chaired by the political theorist Bhikhu Parekh. When the tabloids lambasted the Parekh Report’s alleged equation of Britishness with racism (it in fact said that the idea of Britishness has been racialized) Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, sought to distance himself from the report and the Home Office gave it a decidedly muted reception.22 More substantively, in 2002, David Blunkett claimed that certain groups should be discouraged from speaking languages other than English in their homes, a position widely criticized as illiberal and, ironically, contrary to British values.23 Most problematic of all for anyone wishing to argue that Labour has lived up to its rhetoric on diversity and inclusion, is the way in which the Government has embraced illiberal rhetoric and policies on asylum. The Government has continued, and in fact intensified, the demonization of asylum seekers begun under the Conservative Governments of the 1990s, and a raft of draconian initiatives have been put in place. Most notably, under the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act various restrictive measures were enacted, including a voucher scheme for destitute asylum seekers, an enforced dispersal programme, and the use of prisons and purpose built detention centres;24 while the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act aimed to tighten up the regulation and surveillance of asylum seekers with the proposed introduction of fingerprint systems and identity cards.25 With rising numbers of asylum claims throughout the late 1990s, and the related tabloid frenzy, these policies are not in themselves surprising. But their effect has been to reinforce the view that Britain is a besieged society, and that unless the Government takes ‘tough’ measures it will be inundated with malingerers, criminals and carriers of disease. The various shades of otherness one finds in such claims all have a common underpinning in the idea that ‘they’ do not belong here. Having controlled primary immigration, it is as if the

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threat of ‘non-belongers’ knocking at the door has been transposed onto the asylum issue, and the Government has done virtually nothing to challenge this by promoting a rational public debate on asylum.

3

Old Europe

Europe stands at a demographic crossroads. Two centuries of population growth have given way to an era of decline: current predictions are that the European population will fall from its present level of 725 million to 600 million by 2050.26 Not since the panic of the 1930s has demographic change been such a live political issue. Although not as powerfully affected as some other European countries (such as the Catholic countries of Southern Europe that have birth-rates as low as 1.2) Britain is far from immune to these trends. Britain’s birth-rate has declined from 2.0 in 1970, to 1.8 in 1985 and 1995, and it now stands at 1.6.27 As the United Nations Population Fund observed in its report on the State of the World Population 2002, the implications of this are enormous: ‘The debate ranges far from demographies and has touched on race relations, welfare policies, and the state of marital relations in two-income families.’28 Over the next few decades the British population will age significantly and the ratio of those who make contributions through taxes to those who are the recipients of state funds (the dependency ratio) will shift dramatically. Demetrios Papademetriou points out that as the baby-boom generation begins to leave the labour market, ‘the number of retirees will reach absolute and relative sizes unlike anything we have witnessed in history …. [T]he taxes of fewer and fewer workers will have to support ever larger numbers of retirees’.29 While previous experience should lead us to treat demographic predictions with caution, especially those with a millennial flavour, it seems improbable that birth-rates will return to replacement levels in the medium-term, and thus we cannot discount the social and economic implications of an older population. This has resurrected the question of whether immigration can provide a solution to the problem of declining and ageing populations. In particular, can soliciting strategies help maintain a feasible dependency ratio? Unsurprisingly, opinions are polarized. No one seriously proposes that immigration offers a simple demographic fix, but many argue that it is an important part of any solution, while others reject it out of hand. The United Nations Population Division’s 2000 report, Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to a Declining and Ageing Population?, argued that for countries such as the United Kingdom and

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France, whose birth-rates are below replacement level but not chronically so, ‘the numbers of migrants needed to offset population decline are less than or comparable to recent past experience’.30 For the United Kingdom, net migration of 125,000 per annum would maintain a constant working age population (this is lower than actual net migration since the late 1990s, and only slightly higher than the Government’s target of 100,000 per annum).31 However, the amount of immigrants required to maintain the dependency ratio at current levels are enormous: the United Kingdom would require net migration of approximately 1.2 million per annum, which is hardly realistic in the current climate. It should be noted that the UNPD’s projections are disputed,32 although for present purposes it is not so much the precise scope of demographic change that is at issue, but rather, given the consensus that sizeable change is underway, what policies can be adopted to ameliorate its negative effects, especially on the dependency ratio. For countries with low labour participation rates, the most obvious domestic remedy is to try to incorporate inactive sections of the population into the workforce through a combination of retraining and recruitment schemes. Compulsion has also been attempted, by making social security benefits dependent on ‘workfare’ schemes such as the Thatcher Government’s Employment and Training Programme or the current Government’s ‘New Deal’ scheme.33 The United Kingdom, however, has comparatively high labour participation rates and low unemployment – even allowing for unemployment hidden through disability benefits and definitional restrictions – thus its room for manoeuvre here is limited. Increasingly, both the Government and employers perceive migrant labour as a necessary part of medium-term population and economic policy. In its submission to the United Nation’s 2003 report on world population policies the Government reported ‘major concern’ with the size of the working-age population and the ageing of the population as a whole, and viewed current levels of immigration as ‘too low’.34 The response has been to develop limited soliciting strategies. For example, in 2002 the Government launched the High Skills Workers Programme, and it has increased the legal channels for low-skilled migrants, both permanent and temporary, through programmes such as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme. Of course, immigration cannot be viewed simply as a labour migration issue – a range of other impacts must be taken into consideration. Assessments of the feasibility of immigration as a means of rejuvenating the population and increasing labour market supply entails consid-

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eration of, inter alia, the impact of immigration on national identity and culture, social cohesion, welfare provisions, and public health.35 As I have shown in Chapters 2–6, such concerns are hardly new. During the inter-war population panic, immigration was considered as a possible solution to an apparently declining population, only to be rejected on the grounds that no ‘suitable’ immigrants were available. Colonial immigration was specifically rejected because it would undermine Britain’s ‘fully established society’.36 Racialized attitudes about Britishness and assimilation played a key role in determining the post-war Labour Government’s decision to recruit European over colonial labour. And during the 1960s, immigration controls were dictated by a racial demographic logic. Today, although such attitudes are rarely stated publicly, they are often present beneath the surface, particularly in contemporary debates about national identity and cultural change. To some extent this is inevitable, given that attitudes to immigration cut right to the heart of a national community’s self-conception, ‘our own understanding of what membership means in our community and of what sort of a community we want to have’.37 It is in this sense that the above discussion about evolving perceptions of citizenship and belonging intersects with the debate about immigration and demographic change. Since demographic debates and population policy invariably invoke ideas about identity, restricting the immigration debate to purely demographic and economic issues will be inadequate and counter-productive. If soliciting immigrants is to form a central plank in contemporary demographic governance, the Government must make a concerted effort to put the case for immigration, and it must promote a public debate that examines, honestly and openly, the social and cultural implications of current policy. Its failure to do either of these things with any real conviction has played into the hands of anti-immigrant campaigners and has contributed towards the populist backlash against immigration policies that are perceived to be elite-driven. A calm, deliberative evaluation of these issues will not be easy given the amount of ground that has already been conceded to antiimmigration campaigners. To see this we need look no further than the apparent ease with which advocates of zero immigration, and even repatriation, link demographic claims with alleged threats to Britishness. For example, the British National Party claims that given current demographic trends ‘the native British people’ will become ‘an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years’, while the UK Independence Party (UKIP) advocates tighter immigration controls on

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the grounds that the United Kingdom is ‘full up’.38 In his antiimmigration polemic, Overcrowded Britain, Ashley Mote claims that the ‘human tidal-wave’ of immigration ‘makes the dilution of the essentially British nature of these islands a certainty within the lifetime of people living today’.39 Such views cannot be written off: Mote was elected as a UKIP MEP in June 2004, and it is clear that his views resonate with significant sections of British society. Indeed, there can be little doubt that arguments for tighter immigration controls have a popular appeal. Public attitudes to immigration and demography are clear: Britain is widely perceived to be ‘full up’ and immigrants are thought to place unbearable burdens on the social services. In a 2004 YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph, 67 per cent of respondents reported that they thought Britain was already an ‘overcrowded island’ and a majority agreed that we should ‘do all we can to prevent large numbers of people from other countries from coming here to live and work’. The poll also showed clear racial demographic dimensions to popular attitudes towards immigration: on the assumption that some immigration continues, 76 per cent of respondents said that they would be happy to see immigrants coming from Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand, compared to 42 per cent for immigrants coming from the Caribbean, 38 per cent from India, and 33 per cent from Pakistan.40 It is not my intention to suggest that there are no legitimate concerns about immigration. Rather, my point is that the public debate about immigration and demographic change is conducted in terms that are both impoverished and hysterical, and we are therefore failing sensibly to evaluate the complex arguments surrounding the issue. Instead, aquatic metaphors – tidal waves, floods, swamping – and a diction of ‘overcrowding’ and ‘invasion’ predominate. Even mainstream opposition to immigration is increasingly couched in alarmist terms of negative socio-demographic effects. For example, the centre-right think tank, Civitas, published a report in 2002 by Anthony Browne entitled Do We Need Mass Immigration? (the implication being that current levels constitute ‘mass’ immigration). Browne argues for zero net migration, claiming that ‘the pattern and scale of immigration to the United Kingdom are such that it achieves very few of the aims that are claimed for it, and it has several harmful consequences in terms of rising congestion, intensified housing crisis, increasingly over-stretched public services such as schools and hospitals, rising inequalities, importing diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis, and fragmenting social cohesion’.41 The formation in 2001 of Migration Watch, a think-

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tank which argues that present levels of immigration ‘are making Britain overcrowded and are changing the nature of our society’,42 reflects the growing politicization of the issue. Migration Watch has carved out a niche as a leading critic of current levels of immigration, and its founder, Sir Andrew Green, regularly contributes to national newspapers, notably the Daily Mail.43 In sum, the recent success of political parties, such as UKIP and the BNP, which have appealed to anti-immigration sentiment in their campaigns, plus the formation of anti-immigration lobby groups, indicates a growing conflict between a government commitment to limited solicitation and an influential strain of support for the continuation, or even intensification, of stemming strategies.

4

Immigration and the future of the welfare state

A lot of hyperbolic claims, both positive and negative, are currently made about the impact of immigration on the welfare state. In fact, immigration is neither the panacea nor the cataclysm for the welfare state that some commentators would have us believe. Rather, as many academic analysts argue and policy-makers increasingly realize, immigration brings both economic benefits and costs which impact in complex ways on labour markets and welfare systems.44 As David Held and colleagues point out, the ‘conventional xenophobic wisdom’ on immigration remains that its consequences ‘are uniformly negative for host welfare states’.45 Certainly, since the 1970s, claims that immigrants place a burden on the economy and public services have continued in the rhetoric of those who advocate stricter immigration controls. To give just one example, in 1992, the Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, sought to justify the Conservative Government’s Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill during its Second Reading by claiming that unrestricted entry ‘would lead to terrible pressures on our employment, on our housing, on our social services, on our health service and on our education service’.46 Commenting on Clarke’s assertion two years later, Sarah Spencer argued that there was in fact no conclusive evidence – from either governmental or non-governmental sources – to support or refute such popular myths about immigration; hence the Government was ‘not in a position to know whether immigrants, on balance, make a positive contribution to the British eco-nomy or constitute a drain on the public services and resources’.47 Over the last ten years such information has become more readily available, although it is still far from comprehensive. According to a

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2002 report, Immigration Policy and the Welfare System, which investigated welfare dependency using the European Community Household Panel, the evidence across Europe is mixed. In some EU countries nonEU migrants do indeed receive proportionally more social transfers than native populations, particularly unemployment benefits and family allowances, but in others they do not (migrants are invariably underrepresented among recipients of pensions). In the case of the United Kingdom, the differentials are small: 2.8 per cent of UK and other EU citizens receive unemployment benefits compared to 3.4 per cent of non-EU migrants; while 20.1 per cent of UK and other EU citizens receive family benefits compared to 20.7 per cent of non-EU migrants. Only with regard to old age pensions is there a significant discrepancy, and here non-EU migrants are much less of a charge than UK and other EU citizens: 3.45 per cent and 26.8 per cent respectively.48 Given the younger age of migrant cohorts and a propensity to retire in their native country, this is not surprising. Similarly, the slightly higher proportion of migrants on unemployment benefits (which are particularly important because they are often at the centre of allegations about welfare scrounging) is largely explained by the socio-economic characteristics of migrant cohorts. Overall, the allegation that immigrants to the United Kingdom are welfare parasites finds little empirical support (as a rule of thumb, in EU countries with more generous unemployment benefits there is evidence of migrant dependency, but there is no such evidence in countries which are less generous, and the United Kingdom falls in the latter category). Contrary to the conventional wisdom of uniformly negative economic impact, the authors of the report argue that selective recruitment strategies could actually help to meet skills shortages and increase employment rates. Furthermore, selective migration policies could break ‘the vicious circle of having formally overstrict migration policies, hence illegal migration’.49 In Britain, one of the most significant developments in recent years has been the increasing tendency for senior politicians to acknowledge that immigrants do indeed make valuable contributions to the economy. A ‘subtle recasting of perceptions of needs and resources’ in relation to migrant labour is underway.50 In a speech on civil society at the 2003 Labour Party conference, David Blunkett claimed that ‘migration – properly managed – can bring real economic, social and cultural benefits’,51 while in April 2004, in his first major speech on immigration since becoming Prime Minister, Tony Blair went further still. Announcing a ‘top to bottom review’ of immigration controls, Blair

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insisted that migrants make a ‘huge contribution’ to the British economy and public services would be ‘close to collapse’ without them. At the same time, he also proposed measures to prevent ‘benefit shopping’ by citizens of the 10 new EU states: ‘No-one will be able to come to the UK from anywhere in the enlarged European Union simply to claim benefits and housing.’52 The Labour Government’s apparent strategy is to go some way towards meeting demands for migrant labour, while tentatively reassuring a sceptical public and hostile press with tough measures on access to welfare benefits. What is not in doubt is that this marks a decisive shift in government announcements on immigration. A sanguine assessment would be wholly misplaced however, for at least three reasons: firstly, a new, even more virulent discourse of welfare parasitism has entered mainstream political debate; secondly, the shift to a limited soliciting strategy for voluntary migrants based on economic arguments has been matched by the stigmatization and penalization of asylum seekers; and thirdly, recent debates about ethnic diversity, social cohesion and support for the welfare state has revealed fissures in support for sponsored immigration even on the liberal-left. The new discourse of welfare parasitism is, if anything, more pervasive than in the 1950s and 1960s. Right-wing tabloid newspapers, notably the Daily Mail and the Sun, present their readers with a constant stream of allegations about feckless scroungers milking the welfare state. A new phrase, ‘benefit tourism’, has entered the lexicon of immigration politics and it has become publicly acceptable to warn of the threats to welfare presented by immigrants, especially in the run up to the accession of eastern European countries to the EU. The Government’s decision to restrict their access to welfare benefits in the face of press and popular hostility indicates the extent to which allegations of welfare parasitism remain a force in immigration policy-making. While there has been a shift in elite discourse on the economic impact of voluntary immigration, allegations of welfare scrounging are still regularly made with regard to asylum seekers. As Hansen and King argue, the new politics of asylum reveals a seam of illiberalism running through the British polity.53 The Labour Government has been at pains to appear ‘tough’ on so-called ‘bogus’ asylum seekers and recent policy has been designed so as to restrict access to welfare benefits for asylum seekers. Section 55 of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act denies welfare provisions to asylum seekers unless they claim asylum within 72 hours of arrival in the country. According to those

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who work with vulnerable groups, this has caused significant social deprivation.54 Of course, the whole logic of such draconian measures is to reduce the supposed ‘pull effect’ of welfare provisions. Tightening up access to welfare is intended to deter would-be asylum seekers, and is part of a broader attempt by the government to reduce the number of claims by making the United Kingdom a less attractive destination. While most commentators argue that this simply won’t work in reducing asylum applications, because the choice of destination for refugees is not based on such factors, they overlook one of the key motivations behind such policy: that the Government is seen to be acting tough on supposed scroungers. In general, the symbolism of immigration controls can be as important to politicians as their practical effects. Finally, a recent questioning of current levels of immigration has been prompted by the debate among sections of the liberal-left about the potentially corrosive effects of immigration on popular support for the welfare state. This debate was prompted by an article published in Prospect magazine by its editor, David Goodhart, which was then reprinted in the Guardian newspaper. Goodhart asks whether Britain is becoming ‘too diverse to sustain the mutual obligations behind a good society and the welfare state’.55 He claims that the two ‘big waves’ of immigration – colonial immigration in the 1950s and 1960s and asylum-driven migration since the late 1990s – have created an ethnic diversity which has ‘eroded’ a common culture based on a limited set of ‘common values and assumptions’. He sees this as a progressive dilemma, for if ‘sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity’ then the left must face up to the trade off between these two values. The choice, he asserts, is between America and Sweden: a diverse, individualistic society with weak mutual obligations and a minimal welfare state versus an homogenous society with intensely shared values and extensive welfare provisions. Goodhart acknowledges that the idea of citizenship can ‘go some way to accommodating the tension between solidarity and diversity’, but he apparently thinks that more is needed than the ‘abstract’ ideal of citizenship, something which he does not specify but refers to as ‘a community worthy of the name’, a ‘common culture’ or a ‘shared history’. In the terms set out in this book, this sounds very much like an appeal to belonging, as opposed to citizenship, and a rather restrictive conception of belonging at that. Goodhart concludes that since diversity ‘can increasingly look after itself’ public policy should ‘tend to favour solidarity’ in the areas of immigration, welfare policy, culture and language. A ‘third way’ between assimila-

The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change 193

tionism and multiculturalism should be pursued, ‘a British version of the old US melting pot’. If Goodhart’s arguments are correct (I cannot here go into the arguments for and against), immigration as a way of improving the dependency ratio and thus relieving pressure on the welfare state, must be balanced against the potential of immigration to undermine popular support for welfare.56 The issues raised by this are both complex and controversial, and they require further investigation. If we are to understand the contemporary politics of immigration and demographic change, we must develop a better appreciation of the interdependent relations between immigration, identity, and welfare. This is partly about our redefinition of conceptions of citizenship and belonging – the definition of ‘legitimate recipients’ of welfare benefits and the grounds for inclusion. In the words of Michael Bommes and Andrew Geddes, editors of a volume on Immigration and Welfare, we need to analyze how ‘international migration in its various forms structurally challenges the organisation and conceptual borders of national welfare states’.57 A central part of this project is to consider how beliefs about entitlement and desert are grounded in popular notions of belonging. We also need to consider the ways in which the welfare system is used as a tool in demographic governance, in particular, as an indirect means of immigration control. Geddes points out that while external barriers to entry have been lowered somewhat in recent years, internal controls ‘anormalizing’ asylum seekers have been developed through the welfare system, including the introduction of the voucher system in 1999 and the 72-hour limit imposed in 2002.58 By forcing asylum seekers onto welfare and preventing them from working legally while their claims are being processed, the Government has fuelled allegations of scrounging. Most recently, the restrictions put on welfare access for migrants from the new EU states has, in effect, created a two-tier welfare system, something which had already emerged in other European countries, notably Denmark.

5

Public health

Concern about the public health implications of immigration continues, as does the debate about compulsory medical examinations. The communicable disease at the centre of debate in the 1960s, tuberculosis, has been joined by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in recent debates. Immigrant-associated tuberculosis and HIV have both attained a high profile on the immigration agenda, with parts of

194 Citizenship and Belonging

the media conflating anti-immigrant sentiments with public health threats. For example, in an article on ‘The secret threat to British lives’ published in the Spectator, Anthony Browne claims that ‘New Labour has been importing killer diseases’ into Britain ‘by promoting mass immigration from the Third World’.59 Such fears are not only circulating in popular debate, they have also had an appreciable impact on policy-makers. In May 2003, the Independent on Sunday reported that the Cabinet Office was carrying out an inquiry into the impact of immigration on public health with the view to screening all immigrants for communicable diseases. The Labour MP, Neil Gerrard, who chairs all-party parliamentary groups on both Aids and refugees, expressed concern that any such policy must not be based on ‘anecdotal evidence or sheer prejudice’, and added that it was not clear what the ‘driving force’ behind the inquiry was.60 At the time of writing no public decision had been taken and the issue remains very much alive. As in the 1960s, there are prima facie epidemiological grounds for these concerns. Data from the Health Protection Agency shows that in 2001 cases of tuberculosis among minority ethnic groups and those born abroad were significantly higher than among white Britons. There were 4.1 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 of the white population, while the equivalent figures for black Africans, Pakistanis, Indians and black Caribbeans were 211.2, 145.2, 103.7 and 33 respectively.61 A total of around three-fifths of tuberculosis cases are among those born abroad. As regards HIV, over two-fifths of new diagnoses are among black Africans. In the context of increasing HIV and tuberculosis rates among the population as a whole it is not difficult to see how immigration is generating public health concerns. However, it is doubtful whether there is a public health rationale for compulsory screening of immigrants. Richard Coker, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, recently researched a paper on the subject for the Institute of Public Policy Research. In an editorial article in the British Medical Journal, Coker argues that ‘for tuberculosis the notion that screening immigrants detects those with the disease and therefore benefits public health is not straightforward’.62 Most active cases of tuberculosis appear to develop after immigration, therefore screening at point of entry would be unlikely to work. A study of the screening of asylum seekers at Heathrow Airport revealed that very few active cases and fewer infectious cases were identified.63 The same problem applies to screening in countries of origin, which in addition

The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change 195

would be impracticable and open to fraud. More generally, screening could be counter-productive: by driving cases underground, discouraging disclosure, and making some patients delay seeking treatment, compulsion could in fact increase the public health risk.64 By creating incentives for clandestine behaviour, compulsion could undermine attempts to integrate immigrants into the health services. Coker concludes that ‘any benefits that might be accrued through the use of compulsion are certainly not grounded in evidence’.65 The situation with HIV appears on the surface to be more clear-cut: on the one hand, detection methods for HIV are reliable, while on the other, there is evidence from the Health Protection Agency that immigrant-associated HIV is increasing. Furthermore, of the cumulative total of 2,046 notifications of HIV positive individuals who are thought to have been infected in the United Kingdom, 944 (46.1 per cent) are thought to have contracted the disease from someone originating outside of Europe: ‘thus, much HIV infection is acquired abroad, and there is evidence of heterosexual transmission in the United Kingdom, which is linked to immigrant-associated HIV’.66 There is, then, a better public health case for HIV screening than there is for tuberculosis. However, as Coker points out there are several practical and ethical questions. For example, who should be screened? All immigrants or just those from countries with high prevalence of HIV? As with tuberculosis, if immigrants were screened there would be a real risk of creating ‘perverse’ incentives for illegal immigration, as migrants fearing a positive result might seek out illicit channels of entry. The recurring problem of creating incentives for illegal entry is given all too little attention by advocates of immigration controls. Then there are ethical issues (although these are generally disregarded by anti-immigration campaigners): the risk of discrimination, problems with confidentiality, the danger of further stigmatizing immigrants. Coker concludes that we are in danger of replacing a ‘human public health policy’ that is ‘rational, coherent, and effective’ with an ‘ill considered conflation of immigration control and communicable disease control’.67 A similar conclusion was reached by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS, which after hearings on migration and HIV, argued that mandatory testing upon entry should not be adopted: there is no evidence to support that such a policy would be effective at protecting public health. The consequence of testing upon entry would be worse as people with HIV would avoid presenting for testing and furthermore, HIV would risk becoming further stigmatised.

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Instead the Government should encourage policies on inclusion which support testing based on informed consent.68 As Shahid Khan, a consultant physician at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage, argues: ‘extreme caution should be exercised to prevent stigmatising or discriminating against a group or an individual on the basis of health related issues.’69 Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a significant mismatch between the considered judgements of medical professionals – as outlined above – and the rhetoric of anti-immigration campaigners who allege that immigrants pose a major public health threat. At times it certainly appears as though the political debate about immigrant health is driven as much by anti-immigrant sentiment as genuine public health concerns. This view is reinforced by that fact that in the political debate the focus is almost exclusively on the supposed threat to public health, in contrast to the Hippocratic discourse of the medical profession which also considers the individual benefits of treatment and care for immigrants themselves. Thus, even those public health experts who do advocate compulsory screening tend to appeal as much to immigrant welfare as public health benefits. Ulf Dahle, a scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, contests Coker’s arguments, but it is notable that he does so by claiming that screening immigrants for tuberculosis ‘is well grounded in individual and public health interests. People with latent infection can be offered preventive treatment or close follow up.’70 As the wider immigration debate has intensified, these public health concerns have become increasingly politicized. Several organizations have called for compulsory screening of immigrants for tuberculosis and HIV: Migration Watch argues for ‘prior health tests’ for intending immigrants and, where prior testing is not possible, for compulsory tests on arrival;71 another campaign organization, Healthwatch UK, has run advertisements in national newspapers, claiming that ‘people are arriving from all over the world to treat themselves to our health services’.72 According to its website, the organization was formed ‘to promote debate and awareness as to the current abuse by non-entitled persons to the resources of the National Health Services’. Curiously, it goes on to say that ‘the medical profession is full of stories of people seeking treatment who have no knowledge of English and whose origins are in countries without reciprocal health arrangements’, as if English language or country of origin, rather than residence, were legitimate criteria for entitlement.73

The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change 197

In a pluralist society, anti-immigration campaign groups will always exist. But it is striking just how far the concerns they articulate have permeated into the mainstream. To give just two examples, the Centre for Policy Studies, a think-tank set up by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph in the 1970s, recently published a report on ‘NHS tourism’,74 while in 2003 the Conservative Party published a consultation paper, Before It’s Too Late: A New Agenda for Public Health, which argues for pre-entry screening of immigrants and compulsory testing at point of entry for asylum seekers.75 At the time the paper was released, Liam Fox, the Conservative’s Shadow Health Secretary, claimed that asylum seekers and immigrants are responsible for the rise in HIV and tuberculosis cases in Britain, and he proposed the introduction of mandatory health screening. He also proposed the introduction of an ‘entitlement card’ for citizens and qualified asylum-seekers, in effect an identity card for legitimate receivers of NHS benefits; those without a card would be barred from non-emergency treatment.76 Splicing these health issues with an allegation of parasitism, he claimed that ‘health tourists’ were intentionally coming to Britain in order to seek treatment on the NHS, turning it into ‘the health equivalent of Disney World’. The Department of Health had previously announced rather more modest measures than those proposed by Dr Fox, and it was clear that the Conservative health spokesman was trying to up the ante. At the time of writing, the Government is considering compulsory screening; it is unclear to what extent this is being driven by political rather than public health considerations.

6

Concluding comment

A better appreciation of immigration and demographic governance is more pressing than ever before because of the gulf that exists between popular restrictionist attitudes and the stance of the current Government, which is increasingly solicitous of immigrants. Advocates for soliciting strategies, on whatever grounds, cannot afford to disregard the concerns of those who believe that immigration poses a threat to their well-being. To ignore these concerns is to court disaster. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the shift from stemming to soliciting strategies across Europe has been accompanied by the rise of far right parties and a revitalized anti-immigrant discourse in mainstream political debate. If anti-immigrant claims founded on racist attitudes are to be rebutted, and the genuine dilemmas posed by new immigration appreciated, we require a better understanding of how the demographic and economic

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changes underway in Britain and Europe are driving immigration policy-making. And as I have insisted throughout this book, we must be alive to the often insidious ways in which racial ideas influence our thinking about these issues. Prising apart well-grounded concerns and racist fears is no easy task, but that is no reason for refusing to attempt to do so. In this book I have shown how immigration policy up until the early 1970s was shaped by wider concerns of demographic governance, not least the desire to prevent Britain from developing as a multiracial society. As I have argued, it is impossible not to conclude that the governance of colonial immigration was racialized: nearly all of the social and demographic arguments for immigration controls, based on claims about population change, welfare, gender, and public health, were mediated by racial prejudices and stereotypes; and in almost every sphere, race played a decisive role. Whilst racialized attitudes are sometimes (although not always) less obvious in the contemporary debates about immigration, they are nevertheless present. It is precisely for this reason that an analysis of these attitudes should occupy a central place in our attempts at understanding the contemporary politics of immigration and demographic change.

Notes Chapter 1 The Politics of Immigration, Race and Demographic Governance 1. For example, see S. Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For an historical overview see M. van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the Nation State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 2. Q. Skinner and B. Strath (eds), States and Citizens: History, Theory, Prospects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 1. 3. E. M. Ucarer, ‘The coming of an era of human uprootedness: a global challenge’ in E. M. Ucarer and D. J. Puchala (eds), Immigration into Western Societies: Problems and Policies (London: Pinter, 1997), p. 4. 4. For an overview see S. Castles and M. J. Miller, The Age of Migration. 3rd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003). 5. At the national level, at least; the British National Party have made significant gains in some local elections. On the new populist parties of the right in Europe see J. Lloyd, ‘The closing of the European gates? The new populist parties of Europe’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 88–99. 6. YouGov poll, Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2004, at http://news.telegraph.co.uk/ news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/26/nvote126.xml. Other polls reveal similar levels of concern. For example, see the results of a 2003 MORI poll at http://www.mori.com/polls/2003/migration.shtml. 7. Office of National Statistics, Population Trends 115: Table 7.1 International Migration: Age and Sex. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/ Spreadsheets/D7962.xls 8. See R. Hansen and D. King, ‘Illiberalism and the new politics of asylum: liberalism’s dark side’, Political Quarterly 71:4 (2000), pp. 396–403; cf. A. Geddes, The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe (London: Sage, 2003), pp. 40–3. 9. B. Jordan and F. Düvell, Migration: The Boundaries of Equality and Justice (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), p. 87. 10. The old-age support ratio, also known as the dependency ratio, is the number of working-age population to the number of retirees. On the demographic deficit see D. G. Papademetriou, ‘The newest age of migration’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 49–51. 11. A. Geddes ‘Migration and the welfare state in Europe’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 150–62; A. Geddes and M. Bommes (eds), Immigration and Welfare: Challenging the Borders of the Welfare State (London: Routledge, 2000). 199

200 Notes 12. M. Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Essential Works Vol. 1, edited by P. Rabinow (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997), p. 73. 13. M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. An Introduction (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 138. 14. The reader who wishes to pursue these ideas is directed to Foucault, The History of Sexuality, pp. 135–50, and also Foucault, Ethics, pp. 67–79. A collection of Foucualdian studies in ‘governmentality’ can be found in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Arguably, insofar as I focus on the state, I depart from a properly Foucualdian analysis in what follows. 15. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, p. 139. 16. W. H. McNeill, Population and Politics since 1750 (London: University Press of Virginia, 1990), pp. 1–2. 17. See A. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 309. 18. I. Hacking, The Taming of Chance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 17. 19. N. Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 216–7. 20. T. R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, selected and introduced by D. Winch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992 [1803]), pp. 15–20. Following Malthus’ intervention, the pronatalist assumptions of the eighteenth century gave way to a contentious debate about the dangers of over-population, with proto-eugenic concerns about ‘over-breeding’ among the ‘lower orders of society’. See M. S. Quine, Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 1–16. 21. W. Petersen, From Persons to People: Further Studies in the Politics of Population (London: Transaction Publishers, 2003), pp. 50–2. 22. F. D’Arcy, ‘The Malthusian League and the resistance to birth control propaganda in late Victorian Britain’, Population Studies 31 (1977), pp. 429–48. 23. J. Roach, Social Reform in England 1780–1880 (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1978), p. 110. 24. For an interesting study of the workhouse system along these lines see F. Driver, Power and Pauperism: The Workhouse System, 1834–1884 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). The regulation of madness in asylums was another aspect of state expansion. See A. Scull, The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 25. D. Porter, Health, Civilization and the State: A History of Public Health from Ancient to Modern Times (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 111–2. 26. See C. Jones and R. Porter (eds), Reassessing Foucault: Power, Medicine and the Body (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 1–2. On the social control of a range of ‘deviant populations’ see S. Cohen and A. Scull, Social Control and the State: Historical and Comparative Essays (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983). 27. S. E. Finer, The History of Government From the Earliest Times: Volume III Empires, Monarchies, and the Modern State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1611.

Notes 201 28. Quine, Population Politics, p. 136. 29. Quoted in R. Hansen and D. King, ‘Eugenic ideas, political interests, and policy variance: Immigration and sterilization policy in Britain and the U.S.’, World Politics 53:2 (2001), p. 237. 30. M. Freeden, ‘Eugenics and progressive thought: a study in ideological affinity’, Historical Journal 22:3 (1979), pp. 645–71. 31. See E. Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003); D. J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995). 32. Buck v. Bell 274 US 200 (1927), p. 207. 33. See M. Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany c. 1900–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 34. M. Burleigh, Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 155. 35. R. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining BirthRate in Twentieth Century Britain (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). 36. The differences between Britain and the US are explored in Hansen and King, ‘Eugenic ideas, political interests, and policy variance’. 37. See D. King, In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 64–96. 38. This point is derived from Rose, Powers of Freedom, p. 23. 39. See the classic threefold typology (liberal, corporatist and social democratic) of G. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990). 40. Castles and Miller, Age of Migration, pp. 50–8. 41. C. Holmes, A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities in Britain (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), pp. 16–21. Cf. C. Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). 42. See D. King ‘Liberal and illiberal immigration policy: a comparison of early British (1905) and US (1924) legislation’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1:1 (2000), pp. 78–96. 43. Castles and Miller, Age of Migration, pp. 68–75. As we shall see in Chapter 3, Britain also recruited foreign labour in the post-war years, but mainly of European origin. 44. C. Joppke, ‘European immigration policies at the crossroads’ in P. Heywood, E. Jones and M. Rhodes (eds), Developments in West European Politics 2 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 260. 45. For an overview see V. Guiraudon and C. Joppke (eds), Controlling a New Migration World (London: Routledge, 2001). 46. Note that emigration can also be encouraged for a number of reasons: for example, to alleviate overpopulation, to perform a safety-valve function in an economy with high unemployment, or to populate overseas territories. 47. Former colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean which remained within the British Commonwealth were known as ‘New’ Commonwealth countries, to distinguish them from the ‘Old’ Commonwealth of Canada, Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes referred to as the ‘White

202 Notes

48.

49.

50.

51.

52. 53.

Dominions’). These three countries became officially independent under the Statute of Westminster on 11 December 1931. South Africa was also included in this group. It was constituted as a Dominion in 1910, and although it had a majority black population it, of course, had a white government. Both of these figures are estimates. See N. Deakin, Colour, Citizenship and British Society (London: Panther Books, 1970), p. 58. I deliberately refer to a multiracial rather than multicultural society. As a result of Irish and east European Jewish immigration during the nineteenth century, as well as earlier migrations such as that of French Huguenots during the sixteenth century, and Italians and Germans in the nineteenth century, Britain in 1948 was already a multicultural society. And of course one must account for the distinct cultures of England, Scotland and Wales. Britain in 1948 was not, however, a multiracial society: nearly all its population was white. (I intend the term ‘race’ in its common usage, as referring to skin colour and other phenotypic characteristics, whilst aware of its socially constructed, not biological, character.) Hence, although immigration per se was far from unprecedented in British history, non-white immigration was a new phenomenon. This, as we shall see, was crucial. In the 2001 Census, 92.1 per cent of the population of England and Wales described themselves as white. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/ profiles/UK-A.asp Z. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration: Immigration, ‘Race’ and ‘Race’ Relations in Post-war Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 28–9; I. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The Making of Multi-Racial Britain (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 46–8. More broadly, as Britain’s attention shifted from the Empire/Commonwealth to Europe and the EEC one of the major obstacles to controls fell away. See Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939, pp. 65–8. As argued by the Parekh Report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (London: The Runnymede Trust, 2000. D. Cesarani, ‘The changing character of citizenship and nationality in Britain’ in D. Cesarani and M. Fulbrook (eds), Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 58.

Chapter 2 Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy 1. An explanatory note on terminology is required here. The terms ‘citizenship’ and ‘citizen’ are used in this chapter in a narrow sense to refer to those with the right to enter and settle in the country. My usage refers to a legal status and not a substantive ideal. Of course, citizenship entails other important rights and often does signify an ideal of inclusion and participation, but this was not the conception of citizenship laid out in the 1948 British Nationality Act. In contrast, the idea of belonging is more elusive and fuzzy. It refers to membership of the national community, membership of Britain’s ‘fully established society’, to use a telling phrase from the 1949 Report of the Royal Commission on Population

Notes 203

2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

(London, HMSO: 1949, Para 329). To belong is to be considered a full member of the British national community. Citizenship is not a sufficient condition for belonging. Admittedly, for some theorists citizenship simply is full membership of a community, which entails a full sense of belonging by self and others. T. H. Marshall claimed that ‘citizenship requires a … direct sense of community membership based on loyalty to a civilization which is a common possession’. Indeed, ‘citizenship’, he wrote, ‘is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community.’ It simply is ‘full membership of a community’. Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 24, 18, 6. This is not the meaning of the word that I intend. Not least because, as Will Kymlicka has observed, Marshall’s assumptions about the basis of citizenship in ‘a civilization which is a common possession’ is problematic in the face of cultural and ethnic diversification. W. Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 328. Belonging is a ‘thicker’ concept than citizenship. Strictly speaking, belonging is not an either/or concept; nor is it singular. It is better to think of different modes of belonging existing along a spectrum, with insiders at one end and rank outsiders at the other. However, for the purposes of explaining the politics of immigration the simplified distinction between ‘belongers’ and ‘non-belongers’ is justified, firstly, because the distinction was made by policy-makers themselves and thus reflected their own understanding of the matter, and secondly, because up to a point there was something quite simplistic about the way in which belonging was understood when it came to immigration, and this turned on perceptions of race. For most of the period under consideration, the distinction that was made between ‘belonging’ and ‘non-belonging’ citizens was effectively code for white and non-white citizens. Other important factors in answering the question of ‘who belongs?’ include language, religion, birthplace, class, cultural practices and traditions, but race has been pre-eminent in the British context. My focus is on a notion of belonging articulated by policy elites, but this was founded on popularly held views. The phrase ‘open citizenship’ comes from A. Favell, Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain. 2nd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 113. R. Karatani, Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth and Modern Britain (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 4–5. K. Paul, ‘The politics of citizenship in post-war Britain’, Contemporary Record 6:3 (1992), p. 470. See also D. Cesarani, ‘The changing character of citizenship and nationality in Britain’ in D. Cesarani and M. Fulbrook (eds), Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 57–73. C. Joppke, Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany and Great Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 101–5. Ibid., p. 101. R. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain: The Institutional Origins of a Multicultural Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),

204 Notes

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

p. 53. For the Second Readings in each House see Parliamentary Debates (Lords) (155), cols. 754–99, 11 May 1948; Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (453), cols. 385–510, 7 July 1948. R. Hansen ‘The politics of citizenship in 1940s Britain: the British Nationality Act’, Twentieth Century British History 10:1 (1999), pp. 67–95. Cf. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, Ch. 2. Literally, this simply means ‘I am a British citizen’, but it indicated a broad Commonwealth tradition and ideal of commonality through identical subjecthood under the British monarch. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 261 ff. PRO, PREM 8/827, Attlee to Creech-Jones, 16 June 1948. The largest scheme was London Transport’s recruitment of 4,449 Barbadians between 1955 and 1961. The two schemes during the years immediately after the war were numerically insignificant. See M. & T. Phillips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 121; and I. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The Making of Multi-Racial Britain (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 42. See Spencer, British Immigration Policy, pp. 21–81. Z. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration: Immigration, ‘Race’ and ‘Race’ Relations in Post-war Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 28–9; Spencer, British Immigration Policy, pp. 46–8. The phrase is Spencer’s. Spencer, British Immigration Policy, p. 47. Parliamentary Debate (Commons) (648), col. 43, 31 October 1961. PRO, CAB 129/65, C. (54) 34, ‘Employment of coloured people’, 30 January 1954. P. Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945 (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 153. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 64. Daily Telegraph, 3 December 1960. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (532), col. 827, 5 November 1954. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 699, 16 November 1961. On the commitment to emigration of ‘British stock’ to the Empire/ Commonwealth see Chapter 3, Section 2. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 252. Hansen considers the diminution of these constraints to be fundamental. E. H. H. Green, Ideologies of Conservatism: Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 189. Spencer, British Immigration Policy, p. 85. PRO, CAB 129/77, C. (55) 102, 22 August 1955. Appendix. PRO, CAB 129/72, C. (54) 354, Memorandum by the Home Secretary, 22 November 1954. See Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, p. 13. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 29, 30 May 1961. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 55, 10 October 1961; Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (648), col. 6, 31 October 1961. Karatani, Defining British Citizenship, p. 144. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 706, 16 November 1961. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (464), col. 1859, 11 May 1949.

Notes 205 36. For an overview see K. Paul, ‘A case of mistaken identity: the Irish in postwar Britain’, International Labor and Working-Class History 49 Spring (1996), pp. 116–42. 37. K. Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 105. 38. PRO, CAB 128/13, CM 48 (74), 18 November 1948. Similar attitudes can be found in Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (458), col. 1414, 25 November 1948; and PRO, FO 371/76369, Commonwealth Liaison, 1949. 39. Parliamentary Debate (Commons) (648), col. 43, 31 October 1961. 40. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 113. Cf. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), cols. 700–1, 16 November 1961. 41. PRO, RG 40/229, Draft speech for the Home Secretary, 6 February 1962. 42. PRO, PREM 11/3238, Butler to Macmillan, 24 November 1961. 43. The Commonwealth Office was the main exception here. In the absence of immigration controls for Irish citizens the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Duncan Sandys, wanted some form of voucher system to be applied. See PRO, PREM 11/3238, Butler to Macmillan, 24 November 1961. 44. PRO, PREM 11/3238, Memorandum by P. J. Woodfield for the PM, November 1961. 45. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 753, 16 November 1961. Cf. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (654), cols. 1245–69, 27 February 1962. 46. See Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 114. 47. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 63, 16 November 1961. 48. CIA 1962 1 (4). 49. See PRO, DO 175/120, Legislation: possible control of Irish immigration, 1960–1. 50. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (653), col. 263, 6 February 1962; and Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (650), col. 1186, 5 December 1961. 51. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: minutes, 31 July 1961. 52. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 695, 16 November 1961. And of course Irish citizens were also exempted from controls by CIA 1962. We can infer from this that they too ‘belonged’ in the requisite sense of that word. 53. See S. Saggar, Race and Politics in Britain (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992) p. 77 ff. Cf. Favell, Philosophies of Integration, pp. 110–22. 54. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, pp. 128–9. 55. J. Hampshire ‘Immigration and race relations policies, 1964–70’ in P. Dorey (ed.), The 1964–1970 Labour Governments (London: Frank Cass, forthcoming). 56. Quoted in Saggar, Race and Politics, p. 90. 57. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 694, 16 November 1961. 58. Rab Butler was asked first, but turned the invitation down. The choice of Lord Mountbatten of Burma was curious given his imperial background. 59. PRO, PREM 13/383, Copy of minute from Lord Mountbatten of Burma to the Prime Minister, 13 June 1965. 60. See Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, pp. 148–9.

206 Notes 61. Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 13. These changes came into effect from 2 August 1965. The reduced quota included 1,000 vouchers allocated to citizens of Malta to ‘give effect to our special obligations to Malta’. These special arrangements were to be reviewed in two years time. 62. Ibid., p. 18 63. For an analysis of the period leading up to RRA 1965 see E. Bleich, Race Politics in Britain and France: Ideas and Policymaking since the 1960s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 35–62. 64. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, p. 50. 65. See PRO, HO 376/139, Integration of Commonwealth immigrants, 1965. 66. P. Foot, Immigration and Race in British Politics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965); S. Patterson, Dark Strangers: A Study of West Indians in London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963); J. Rex and R. Moore, Race, Community and Conflict: A Study of Sparkbrook (London: Oxford University Press, 1967); E. J. B. Rose, Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). 67. See PRO, AST 7/1880, Payment of National Assistance to colonial and Commonwealth immigrants, 1962–67, for details on these and other conferences. ‘Immigration to Assimilation?’ was held at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, 27–9 September 1965. ‘East meets West’ was organized by the Nottingham Council of Social Service and was held in Manchester, 25–6 July 1964. 68. PEP, A PEP Report on Racial Discrimination (London: PEP, 1967). Bleich argues that the PEP report was decisive in generating support for what became the 1968 Race Relations Act. Race Politics in Britain and France, pp. 75–7. 69. See Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, pp. 77–8; and Saggar, Race and Politics, pp. 76–7. 70. See, for example, The Guardian, 15 October 1964. Griffiths defended the use of this phrase in The Times, by claiming that ‘I should think it is a manifestation of the popular feeling. … I would say it is exasperation, not fascism.’ In deciding not to condemn Griffiths’ campaign, Conservative Party Central Office argued in an internal document that ‘in a great Party such as ours, which believes in freedom, there must be a certain liberty to practise this within the Party. There are many people who would support the principle of no racial discrimination but if a large number of coloured immigrants came and lived next door under conditions which made it impossible to maintain decent living standards by our levels it can be understood if they react unfavourably towards this.’ CPA: CCO 4/9/398. 71. The Economist, 13 February 1965. 72. At the 1965 Annual Conservative Party Conference an overwhelming majority carried Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler’s motion: ‘this Conference, recognizing that firm restrictions on new entrants are now necessary to prevent exacerbation of the overcrowding problem in areas of immigrant concentration, urges that this must be coupled with positive and wide ranging measures for the integration of existing immigrants in the fields of housing, education, employment and the social services, backed up by the generous resources of the central Government.’ CPA: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 83rd Annual Conference, pp. 78–83.

Notes 207 73. F. W. S. Craig, British General Election Manifestos 1959–1987 (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1990), p. 96. 74. On the bipartisan consensus see Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, Ch. 4; A. Messina, Race and Party Competition in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), Ch. 2. 75. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 161 n. 39. 76. PRO, CAB 128/43, CC 68 (13), 15 February 1968. See also the Home Secretary’s memorandum at PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 34. 77. PRO, CAB 128/43, CC 68 (13), 15 February 1968. The Commonwealth Secretary’s memorandum outlining his objections can be found at PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 35. 78. PRO, CAB 128/43, CC 68 (13), 15 February 1968. Cf. PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 36. The Attorney General noted that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) presented greater difficulties. Article 3 of the Fourth Protocol provided that no person should be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the state of which he or she was a national. However, he observed that although the government had signed this Protocol they had not yet ratified it. On the idea of ‘non-belonging’ citizens see also the Home Secretary’s memorandum PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 34, Appendix III. 79. PRO, CAB 128/43, CC (68) 14, 22 February 1968. 80. Prominent opponents of the Bill included Iain Macleod, Nigel Fisher and Ian Gilmour in the Conservative Party; and Michael Foot, Anthony Lester and Shirley Williams in the Labour Party. 81. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (759), col. 1917, 1 March 1968. 82. See PRO, HO 344/182, Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, 1968. 83. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, pp. 164–5. 84. The Spectator, 1 March 1968. 85. PRO, HO 344/324, Miscellaneous correspondence including drafting of Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, July 1967 to March 1968. This variant comes from ‘Some points related to the possibility of legislation to regulate the flow of British citizens of Asian origin to the United Kingdom’, paper by the British High Commission, Nairobi, Kenya, 20 February 1968. 86. PRO, HO 344/324, ‘The morality of the proposed extension of immigration control’, undated memorandum. 87. Z. Layton-Henry, ‘Immigration and the Heath Government’ in S. Ball and A. Seldon (eds), The Heath Government 1970–1974: A Reappraisal (London: Longman, 1996), p. 222. 88. Craig, British General Election Manifestos, p. 127. 89. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (813), cols. 76–85, 8 March 1971. 90. PRO, CAB 128/47, 41(6), 26 November 1970. 91. PRO, CAB 129/154, CP (70) 126, 31 December 1970. 92. Ibid. 93. PRO, CAB 128/49, CM (71) 1, 5 January 1971. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 195. 97. Parliamentary Debates (Commons), Standing Committee B, 1970–71, col. 276, 6 April 1971.

208 Notes 98. PRO, CAB 129/157, CP (71) 58, 10 May 1971. 99. PRO, CAB 128/49, CM (71) 25, 13 May 1971. 100. See Layton-Henry, ‘Immigration and the Heath Government’ for a fuller account. 101. Favell, Philosophies of Integration, p. 113. 102. British Nationality Law: Discussion of Possible Changes, Cmnd. 6795 (London: HMSO, 1977). 103. British Nationality Law: Outline of Proposed Legislation, Cmnd. 7987 (London: HMSO, 1980). 104. V. Bevan, The Development of British Immigration Law (London: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 129.

Chapter 3

The Racial Demography of Immigration Controls

1. Commission for Racial Equality, Immigration Control Procedures, 1985, p. 125. Quoted in S. Cohen, Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2001), p. 26. 2. D. Coleman and J. Salt, The British Population: Patterns, Trends, and Processes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 442. 3. M. S. Quine, Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 8. 4. For a history of the Eugenics Society see P. M. H. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings (London: Routledge, 1992). On eugenics’ appeal to progressives see M. Freeden, ‘Eugenics and progressive thought: a study in ideological affinity’, Historical Journal 22:3 (1979), pp. 645–71. Other studies include: E. Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003); G. Jones, Social Darwinism and English Thought (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980); D. J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); D. King, In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), Ch. 3; R. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birth-Rate in Twentieth Century Britain (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); and N. Stepan, The Hour of Eugenics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). King’s discussion of the Brock Committee is especially instructive. He demonstrates how lobbying by the eugenics movement resulted in the appointment in 1932 of a special committee by the Minister of Health to investigate and make recommendations on the sterilization of the ‘feeble-minded’ in England and Wales. The 1934 Brock Report recommended in favour of voluntary sterilization, although this was never implemented, largely because the Government feared it to be impolitic. The history of the Brock Committee provides a good case study of both the successes and limits of eugenicist thinking in inter-war Britain. After the war the influence of eugenics dwindled rapidly, not least because of revelations about the Nazi sterilization programmes and death camps. By the early 1960s it was a spent force, symbolised by the replacement of the Eugenics Review, the journal of the Eugenics

Notes 209

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Society, with the less propagandist Journal of Biosocial Science in 1961. See Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, p. 356. See P. Thane, ‘The “menace” of an ageing population’, Continuity and Change 5:2 (1990), pp. 283–305. Also P. Thane, ‘Population politics in post-war Britain’ in B. Conekin, F. Mort and C. Waters (eds), Moments of Modernity (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1999). Coleman and Salt, The British Population, p. 62. Fig. 2.7. P. Addison, ‘The road from 1945’, in P. Hennessy and A. Seldon (eds), Ruling Performance: British Governments From Attlee to Thatcher (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p. 13. Keynes’ view on population are discussed extensively in J. Toye, ‘Keynes on population and economic growth’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 21:1 (1997), pp. 1–26; and in his Keynes on Population (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), especially pp. 153–8. Sir W. Beveridge, ‘Population and unemployment’ in R. L. Smyth (ed.), Essays on the Economics of Socialism and Capitalism: Selected Papers Read to Section F of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1886–1932 (London: Duckworth, 1964), p. 270. R. M. Titmuss, Poverty and Population: A Factual Study of Contemporary Social Waste (London: Macmillan, 1938), p. 53. This was not exclusively a colonial matter; on fears about the positive net reproduction rates of Bolshevik Russia and of Japan see Coleman and Salt, The British Population, p. 519. New Statesman, 22 September 1923. E. Charles, The Twilight of Parenthood: A Biological Study of the Decline of Population Growth (London: Watts and Co., 1934), p. 2. Hogben also published on this issue. See L. Hogben, Political Arithmetic (London: Allen & Unwin, 1938). Charles, The Twilight of Parenthood, p. 102. Charles’ book sold well and was reprinted by Pelican in 1936 with an even more ominous title, The Menace of Underpopulation. Titmuss, Poverty and Population, p. vi. Mass Observation, Britain and her Birth-Rate (London: John Murray, 1945), p. 7. D. V. Glass, ‘The population problem and the future’, Eugenics Review 26:1 (1937), p. 44. Report of the Royal Commission on Population, Cmd. 7695 (London: HMSO, 1949), p. iii. The Royal Commission on Population was not the only official investigation into demographic issues begun during the war years. The Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, which produced The Barlow Report of 1940, and the Abercrombie Report of 1944 both dealt with population questions. The former proposed the decentralisation of industry and the industrial work force, the latter built on this by creating public sector new towns, such as Milton Keynes. Neither addressed international migration. Ibid., Para. 87. Ibid., Para. 321. Ibid., Paras 492–594. Ibid., Para. 41. Emphasis added. Ibid., Para. 332.

210 Notes 23. Similar opinions would last well into the 1950s. For example, in a 1954 Commons debate on colonial immigrants, T. L. Iremonger (Con.) claimed that the interchange of population should involve migration from Britain to the Commonwealth, not the other way round. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (532), col. 832, 5 November 1954. 24. Report of the Royal Commission on Population, Para. 329. 25. Ibid., Para 329. 26. Ibid., Para. 648. 27. Coleman and Salt, The British Population, p. 116. 28. Ibid., p. 117. 29. E. M. Hubback, The Population of Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1947), p. 13. 30. Ibid., pp. 114–5. 31. Ibid., p. 114. 32. Ibid., p. 117. 33. Ibid., p. 246. 34. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, p. 273. 35. PEP, Population Policy in Great Britain (London: PEP, 1948), pp. 1–2. 36. Ibid., p. 38. It is useful to compare this passage with the views of Beveridge and Titmuss in the 1930s and Hubback in the 1940s. For here we see such a confidence in the superiority of ‘white peoples’ that even a gross numerical imbalance between ‘white peoples’ and the ‘economically backwards peoples’ is not considered to be a threat, but a situation requiring benevolent action by the former. This is reinforced elsewhere by the report’s use of contrasting phrases such as ‘primitive peoples’ and ‘higher civilisations’. 37. Ibid., pp. 6–10. 38. Ibid., p. 104. 39. Recruitment schemes for these groups are discussed in Section 4 below. 40. PEP, Population Policy in Great Britain, p. 114. 41. See, for example, Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 687, 16 November 1961. Also PRO, CAB 129/77, Report of the Committee on the Social and Economic Problems Arising from the Growing Influx into the UK of Coloured Workers from Other Commonwealth Countries, 3 August 1955. Appendix: draft statement on colonial immigrants. 42. Desmond King describes this distinction as follows: ‘either design institutions which permit [or even encourage] wide variation in cultural and other practices but within the context of defined core values and constitutional institutions (for instance, individual rights and judicial review respectively); or impose a single version of national identity, enforce assimilation to it and exclude those considered, on grounds of religion, race or ethnicity, unassimilable.’ D. King, The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 43. Cited in K. Paul, ‘A case of mistaken identity: the Irish in postwar Britain’, International Labor and Working-Class History 49 Spring, (1996), p. 117. See also Statement on the Economic Considerations affecting relations between Employers and Workers, Cmd. 7018 (London: HMSO, 1947), Paras. 7–12. 44. Economic Survey for1947, Cmd. 7046 (London: HMSO, 1947), Paras. 120–6. The Survey recommended the use of ‘foreign labour’ but made no reference whatsoever to the potential use of colonial labour.

Notes 211 45. K. Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 78. On alien labour recruitment see also A. Cairncross, Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy, 1945–51 (London: Metheun, 1985); D. Kay and R. Miles, Refugees or Migrant Workers? European Volunteer Workers in Britain, 1946–1951 (London: Routledge, 1992); J. A. Tannahill, European Volunteer Workers in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958); M. Wyman, DP: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–51 (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1989). 46. PRO, CAB 129/7, CP (46) 71, Cabinet memorandum, 20 February 1946. 47. In addition, the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 made financial provision for pensions and other benefits to ease Polish veterans and their families into British society. 48. Paul, Whitewashing Britain, p. 74. 49. Although some unions did oppose the employment of EVWs on the grounds that economic circumstances, and therefore labour shortages, could swiftly change. See Z. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration: Immigration, ‘Race’ and ‘Race’ Relations in Post-war Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 30. 50. PRO, LAB 13/367, T. J. Weiler to Ministry of Labour, 15 September 1949. 51. PRO, CO 1006/1, Working Party on the employment in the United Kingdom of surplus colonial labour, minutes, 6 October 1948. Also PRO, CO 1006/2, Working Party on the employment in the United Kingdom of surplus colonial labour, papers, 6–27 October 1948. Some recruitment of female colonial workers for nursing and domestic work was recommended however. This is discussed by Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, p. 12. 52. PRO, LAB 13/42, H. H. Wiles to M. A. Bevan, 8 March 1948. In April, Bevan wrote that ‘as regards the possible importation of West Indian labour, I would suggest that we must dismiss any idea of this from the start’. Bevan to Veysey, 15 April 1948. 53. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Report of Chief Superintendent, F Division, Hammersmith, 27 March 1952. 54. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, p. 13. See also C. Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), p. 221. 55. This myth has become pervasive, even in academic writing. For example, David Mason’s claim, in his introductory text on race in Britain, that ‘in the context of continuing labour shortages they [citizens of Commonwealth countries] were specifically encouraged [to migrate to Britain] both by government and employers … as a result, through the 1950s and 1960s increasing numbers of Commonwealth migrants began to arrive’ is highly misleading. D. Mason, Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain. 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 25. 56. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (451), col. 1851, 8 June 1948. 57. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (451), col. 1852, 8 June 1948. 58. PRO, CAB 129/28, CP (48) 154, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 13 June 1948. 59. PRO, HO 213/244, Admission of Jamaicans to UK, various MPs to C. Attlee, 22 June 1948.

212 Notes 60. PRO, HO 213/244, C. Attlee to Labour MPs, undated July 1948. 61. PRO, CAB 128/27, CC (54) 7, minutes, 3 February 1954. 62. PRO, CAB 129/65, C (54) 34, Memorandum by the Home Secretary, 30 January 1954. In another memorandum considered at the same meeting, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rab Butler, recounted how the Cabinet had ‘invited me to arrange for the … examination of the possibility of restricting the number of coloured people obtaining admission to the Civil Service’. He reported that ‘any discrimination against them would either have to be, or become, overt and would involve difficulties of principle out of all proportion to any practical advantage which the Civil Service might derive from it’. PRO, CAB 129/65 C (54) 37, Recruitment of coloured persons to the Civil Service, 2 February 1954. 63. PRO, CAB 129/77, CP (55) 102, Report to the Cabinet by the Committee on Social and Economic Problems, 22 August 1955. 64. Ibid., Appendix. 65. For example, see M. Banton, The Coloured Quarter: Negro Immigrants in an English City (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955), pp. 104–11; A. H. Richmond, The Colour Problem: A Study of Racial Relations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955), pp. 260–8. 66. PRO, CAB 129/77, CP (55) 102, Report to the Cabinet by the Committee on Social and Economic Problems: Appendix, 22 August 1955. 67. PRO, CAB 128/29, CC (55) 39, minutes, 3 November 1955. 68. Cited in K. Malik, ‘The real meaning of diversity’, Connections, Winter 2001–2, p. 11. 69. PRO, CAB 128/29, CC (55) 39, minutes, 3 November 1955. I return to the non-economic rationale for immigration controls in Chapter 4. 70. PRO, PREM 11/824, N. Brook to A. Eden, 3 November 1955. 71. PRO, CAB 129/81, CP (56) 145, Colonial Immigrants: Report of the Committee of Ministers, 22 June 1956. 72. Ibid. Emphasis added. 73. Ibid. The Lord President, the Marquess of Salisbury, dissented from this view, favouring immediate action to restrict immigration. 74. I. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The Making of Multi-Racial Britain (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 51. 75. The Economist, 29 November 1958. 76. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 7, minutes, 16 February 1961. 77. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 29, minutes, 30 May 1961. 78. PRO, CAB 129/105, C (61) 67, memorandum by the Lord Chancellor, 30 May 1961. 79. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 29, minutes, 30 May 1961. 80. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee, minutes, 31 July 1961. 81. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee, minutes, 29 September 1961. 82. PRO, CAB 128/35, CC (61) 55, minutes, 10 October 1961. 83. R. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain: The Institutional Origins of a Multicultural Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 250. 84. Ibid.

Notes 213 85. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee, minutes, 3 July 1961. 86. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 687–8, 16 November 1961. 87. PRO, PREM 11/3238, Adams to Macmillan, 17 November 1961. 88. PRO, PREM 11/3238, Macmillan to Adams, 25 November 1961. 89. The term assimilation had different connotations in different contexts. For example, it sometimes had an economic implication, at other times a cultural one. These meanings were far from discrete and there was significant ambiguity and overlap in usage. Because of this indeterminacy, the concept of assimilation could be used in a wide variety of arguments and it came to acquire the character of a reason in itself. 90. PRO, PREM 11/3238, Brook to Macmillan, undated November 1961. 91. Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 5. 92. PRO, LAB 8/2867, Research into social and economic effects of coloured immigration, 1963–5. 93. PRO, RG 19/572, Ramprakash to Boston, 26 February 1968. 94. N. Pannell and F. Brockway, Immigration: What is the Answer? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 47. 95. Ibid., p. 40. 96. J. Sanders, ‘Immigration: The Incredible Folly’ (Birmingham Immigration Control Association, 1965) in LPA, Labour Party Research Department: Race Relations and Immigration, 1958–68. 97. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration, p. 78. 98. Daily Telegraph, 18 October 1967. 99. The tone of Ennals’ criticisms are especially interesting considering that he was addressing a Cabinet Minister and was therefore lower in ministerial rank than Snow. 100. PRO, RG 26/435, Ennals to Snow, 7 November 1967. 101. Osborne explained in his letter to the Prime Minister that he was bypassing the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, ‘since his mind is closed to these obvious national dangers’ and requested Wilson to consider a total ban lest ‘the English race [be] destroyed’ PRO, RG 26/435, Osborne to Wilson, 13 July 1967. 102. The whole exchange is contained in PRO RG 26/435, Ennals to Snow, 11 September 1967; Snow to Ennals, 27 September 1967; Ennals to Snow, 7 November 1967. The relevant Parliamentary questions can be found in Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (748), col. 338, 22 June 1967; and Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (760), col. 127, 7 March 1968. 103. J. Hampshire, ‘Immigration and race relations policies, 1964–70’ in P. Dorey (ed.), The 1964–1970 Labour Governments (London: Frank Cass, forthcoming). 104. PRO, HO 376/139, Paper by Prem Khera, 3 March 1965. 105. PRO, CAB 129/77, Report of the Committee on Social and Economic Problems, Appendix: Draft Statement on Colonial Immigrants, August 1955. 106. PRO, CAB 128/43, CC 68 (14), 22 February 1968. 107. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (759), col. 1249, 27 February 1968. 108. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (759), cols. 1246–7, 27 February 1968.

214 Notes 109. PRO, HO 344/324, ‘The scope of the Bill’, undated memorandum, 1968. A similar statement was made by Callaghan in the Second Reading of the Bill. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (759), col. 1251, 27 February 1968. 110. PRO, HO 344/324, ‘The scope of the Bill’. This section of the memorandum questions an earlier assumption that the total intake of 37,000 Asians in 1966 was ‘tolerable’ (30,000 Asian immigrants under controls and 7,000 from East Africa) by suggesting that towards the end of 1966 ‘the social services were feeling the strain and it would not be wise to continue indefinitely at such a rate’ and that the arrival of dependants was in any case likely to increase this total. 111.PRO, HO 344/324, ‘The morality of the proposed extension of immigration control’, undated memorandum, 1968. 112. PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 34, Immigration Legislation: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, 12 February 1968.

Chapter 4 ‘Coloured Dick Whittingtons in this Land of Socialized Gold’: Immigration and the Welfare State 1. To be clear, my argument is not that had social security been founded upon citizenship rather than contributions, allegations of welfare parasitism would not have occurred – access to the NHS was a citizenship right and immigrants were sometimes accused of coming to Britain to exploit that – but rather that the contributory principle exacerbated the tendency to distinguish between those who were deserving of social security and those who were not. 2. This is not the same as Rogers Brubaker’s distinction between formal and substantive citizenship. Brubaker is concerned to point out the difference between citizenship understood as ‘membership of a nation-state’ and citizenship as the ownership and exercise of a set of rights: civil, political and social. See R. Brubaker (ed.), Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship (London: University Press of America, 1989), p. 3. The present argument is that CUKCs’ exercise of such substantive rights as they were legally entitled to was opposed because they did not belong and were therefore not considered deserving. In other words, formal citizenship was not viewed as a sufficient condition for the enjoyment of substantive citizenship rights. 3. What follows is a brief exposition of those aspects of the establishment of the welfare state that are germane to my argument. The focus is on citizenship and belonging and social security, as these are of most relevance to allegations of welfare parasitism directed at immigrants. 4. D. Fraser, The Welfare State (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000), p. 60. 5. P. Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945 (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 152. See also J. Dryzek and R. E. Goodin, ‘Risk-sharing and social justice: the motivational foundations of the post-war welfare state’, British Journal of Political Science 16:1 (1986), pp. 1–34. 6. On the pre-war origins see P. Thane, Foundations of the Welfare State. 2nd Edition (London: Longman, 1996). Titmuss is quoted at p. 223.

Notes 215 7. Quoted in Fraser, The Welfare State, p. 64. 8. T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 24, 18. 9. M. Everson, ‘“Subjects” or “citizens of Erewhon”? Law and non-law in the development of a “British citizenship” ‘, Citizenship Studies 7:1 (2003), p. 60. 10. T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development (New York: Anchor, 1965), pp. 101–2. 11. W. Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 328. Another political theorist, David Miller, has said of Marshall that ‘writing in the relatively homogenous Britain of 1950, he is preoccupied with the relationship between citizenship and class inequalities, and can assert confidently that “citizenship requires a bond of a different kind, a direct sense of community membership based on loyalty to a civilisation which is a common possession.” … Marshall’s view runs into difficulties, however, once the idea of a common civilization is challenged by the emergence of radical cultural pluralism.’ D. Miller, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), p. 44. 12. W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 77. Support for redistributive taxation is the most obvious example of such a sacrifice. 13. J. Crowley, ‘The national dimension of citizenship in T. H. Marshall’, Citizenship Studies 2:2 (1998), p. 174. 14. Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, p. 332. 15. The decennial census was cancelled in 1941 due to wartime exigencies, thus Beveridge would have been unaware that the birth-rate had actually begun to increase. 16. Sir W. Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd. 6404 (London: HMSO, 1942), Para. 413. 17. Ibid., Para. 117. 18. Ibid., Para. 7. 19. Ibid., Para. 455. 20. Ibid., Para. 461. 21. Quoted in Fraser, The Welfare State, p. 79. 22. National Assistance was originally viewed as a safety net, but entitlement levels were not set at an appropriate level and rather than the number of people relying on it decreasing, as Beveridge had envisioned, the numbers actually increased. By the mid 1960s there were four times as many people on assistance as there had been in the late 1940s. Furthermore, the home visits to determine need contributed towards National Assistance becoming a highly stigmatised form of relief. The 1966 Social Security Act renamed it as Supplementary Benefit and simplified the claims process, and a single Ministry of Social Security was created. 23. F. Lafitte, ‘Britain’s Way to Social Security’ in N. Deakin (ed.), Origins of the Welfare State. Vol. V (London: Routledge, 2000 [1945]), p. 25. 24. PRO, PREM 11/824, Cutting from Cabinet minutes CC (54) 7th Conclusions, 3 February 1954. 25. Welfare services may well figure as one among several incentives to migration, such services do after all affect a country’s standard of living.

216 Notes

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

However, the claim embedded in the discourse of welfare parasitism is that welfare forms a primary attraction to potential immigrants, more so than employment opportunities for example. This view contrasted with the situation in the United States in the 1960s, where many migrants were praised for emigrating, and were considered as the most energetic and entrepreneurial members of their sending societies. PRO, CO 1006/1, Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour, minutes, 6 October 1948. See also the memorandum, ‘Arrival in the United Kingdom of Jamaican unemployed’, by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, which was presented to the Cabinet in June 1948. The memorandum dealt with the question of how the Government should ‘deal with the situation’, and the description of the migrants as ‘Jamaican unemployed’ suggests a prejudgement of their problematic status. PRO, CAB 129/28 CP(48) 154, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 13 June 1948. This view is reinforced by the frequency with which immigration was described as a ‘problem’ by both politicians and civil servants. PRO, CO 1006/1, Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour, minutes, 27 October 1948; and PRO, CO 1006/2, Report by the Ministry of Labour for the Working Party, October 1948. PRO, LAB 13/42, Report of the Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour, undated 1948. Emphasis in original. Ibid. Note the gender aspect to the Working Party’s reasoning here. Immediately following this conclusion there is a recommendation that arrangements be made for a ‘limited number of female Colonial workers’ as hospital domestics and a possible ‘experimental scheme’ for private domestic workers. PRO, CO 876/231, Report by the NAB for the Inter-Departmental Committee on Colonial People in the UK, 15 September 1950. PRO, CO 537/6700, Report by the NAB Area Office, Stockwell, 16 July 1951. PRO, CO 876/232, Memorandum of the Advisory Panel of the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Committee, 21 January 1951. The Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom was established in July 1950. Chaired by the Home Secretary, J. Chuter Ede, its membership included the Minister of Labour, G. A. Isaacs, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, J. Griffiths, amongst others. See PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet: miscellaneous committees, 1950–1. PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom, memorandum, 17 July 1950. PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom, 10 January 1951. PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom, memorandum by the Home Office, the

Notes 217

38. 39.

40.

41. 42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

Ministry of Labour, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Transport, 2 January 1951. Cited in PRO, CO 876/233, Note of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Colonial People in the U.K., 29 April 1952. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Public morals: reports on the settlement of coloured Commonwealth immigrants in London boroughs, memorandum by J. Waring Sainsbury, 21 January 1952. Occasionally during the early 1950s, immigration was linked with communist subversion. For example, at a Cabinet Committee meeting on 10 January 1951, when the majority of immigrants were arriving from the Caribbean, large-scale Indian immigration was predicted with the statement that it could ‘possibly [be] Communist inspired’. PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom, 10 January 1951. Another Metropolitan Police file from the same time contained a memorandum by Sir Ralph Glyn MP on ‘Colonials in London and Communist activities to influence their attitude’, in which he expressed concern that ‘communist agents are busy amongst these people’. PRO, MEPO 2/9288, Colonials in London: social conditions, 1950–3, memorandum by Sir Ralph Glyn, undated. On the more general question of national security and immigration see C. Harris, ‘Configurations of racism: the civil service, 1945–60’, Race & Class 33:1 (1991), p. 6 ff. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Public morals: reports on the settlement of coloured Commonwealth immigrants in London boroughs, memorandum by J. Waring Sainsbury, 21 January 1952. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Report by Chief Superintendent of N Division, Stoke Newington, 31 March 1952. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Reports by ‘Commander 2’, Paddington Green, 31 March 1952; Chief Superintendent of D Division, Euston, 27 March 1952; Chief Superintendent of F Division, Hammersmith, 27 March 1952. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to the Under Secretary of State, Home Office, Aliens Dept., 10 April 1952. Empire News, 3 October 1954. See PRO, MEPO 2/9563. That year Churchill described immigration as ‘the most important subject facing the country’. Quoted in Z. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration: Immigration, ‘Race’ and ‘Race’ Relations in Post-war Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 31. PRO, MEPO 2/9563, Report by Chief Superintendent of J Division, Hackney, 6 October 1954. PRO, MEPO 2/9563, Report of the District Commander’s Office, Paddington Green, 8 October 1954. Ibid. PRO, PREM 11/824, Report by Nigel Fisher, Parliamentary Private Secretary, for the Prime Minister’s Office, undated 1955. Daily Telegraph, 16 July 1951. Letter-writers to other newspapers made similar claims, and from the later 1950s these were clipped by the National Assistance Board. For example, PRO, AST 7/1878, Payment of National Assistance to colonial and Commonwealth immigrants, contains relevant cuttings from the letters pages of the Manchester Evening News, 25 September 1959, and the Daily Express, 1 December 1960.

218 Notes 50. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (532), col. 827, 5 November 1954. As we saw in Chapter 2, the idea that a significant proportion of immigration was government-sponsored is erroneous, but it is a perception encouraged by statements such as the one above. Similarly, a story in The Times, 14 October 1954, which was accompanied by a picture of Jamaicans waiting for their luggage at Paddington Station, London, proclaimed ‘“Planned” Migration Increasing’. 51. Sunday Graphic, 26 October 1952. 52. Daily Express, 1 February 1955, cited in PRO, LAB 8/1537, Coloured people in the UK: coloured workers as subject of BBC series of television programmes known as ‘Special Enquiry’. 53. News Chronicle, 18 August 1954. Clipping in PRO, LAB 26/198, Disturbances in National Service Hostels Corporation due to incompatibility of various Nationals, 1947–56. 54. Daily Sketch, 1 January 1955. 55. Daily Sketch, 5 January 1955. 56. Daily Telegraph, 29 January 1954. 57. Empire News, 12 July 1959. 58. PRO, CAB 129/66, C (54) 94, Memorandum by the Home Secretary, 9 March 1954. 59. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (531), col. 1586, 25 October 1954. 60. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (531), col. 213, 25 October 1954. 61. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (532), cols. 822 ff., 5 November 1954. To the annoyance of certain MPs, no representative of the Home Office was present for the debate, and Hopkinson spoke for the Government. 62. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (542), col. 1143, 21 June 1955. Eden refused to answer the question, claiming: ‘I do not think that that is the Question which the Hon. Member has on the Order Paper.’ 63. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (613), col. 1121, 17 November 1959. Cf. Pannell’s written question on unemployment among immigrants in the Midlands area a year later. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (631), cols. 139–40, 6 December 1960. 64. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (626), cols. 688–90, 7 July 1960. 65. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (638), col. 468, 13 April 1961. 66. PRO, CAB 130/61, Cabinet Committee on the Immigration of British Subjects into the United Kingdom, memorandum by the Home Office, the Ministry of Labour, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Transport, 2 January 1951. 67. The Committee was appointed in February 1956, at the Prime Minister’s request, to consider further whether legislation to control immigration was required and, if so, what form it should take and how it could be justified. It was chaired by the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir, and its membership included the Home Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, and the Minister of Labour. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, 1956. 68. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 27 February 1956. 69. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Report to the Cabinet, 27 February 1956. 70. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 4 October 1956. Cf. PRO, CAB 129/84, CP (56) 263, Colonial

Notes 219

71. 72.

73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

78. 79. 80.

Immigrants: Supplementary Report of the Committee of Ministers, 14 November 1956, in which it is stated that most colonial immigrants ‘are able to find employment, and that saturation point in the demand for coloured workers has not yet been reached.’ See also PRO, PREM 11/1409, Immigration into UK of Irish citizens, 1956. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 4 October 1956; see also minutes for 25 April 1956. The verbose full title was the Working Party on Social and Economic Problems Arising from the Growing Influx into the UK of Coloured Workers from other Commonwealth Countries. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (634), col. 2011, 17 February 1961. PRO, CAB 134/1467, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 22 July 1959. PRO, DO 35/7991, Note by the Ministry of Labour, June 1960. In the absence of legislative controls, the Ministry of Labour urged the need to maintain administrative restrictions on immigration from the New Commonwealth, arguing that there must be a limit to the number of ‘unskilled coloured immigrants’ the country could absorb ‘especially if they are illiterate and speak no English’. Ibid. PRO, AST 7/1878, Payment of National Assistance to colonial and Commonwealth immigrants, memorandum, 24 June 1959. The file also contains a report on a Group Conference to Discuss the Problems of Coloured Applicants, held by the London (North) Regional Office of the NAB on 30 May 1960, at which representatives from each of the Area Offices discussed ‘voluntary unemployment’. It was ‘generally agreed’ that such cases were ‘few among coloured immigrants’. Whilst there were a few cases of fraudulent applications ‘most of the immigrants came here to work and applied for assistance only when in genuine need’. PRO, AST 7/1878, draft for Annual Report, no date. PRO, AST 7/1878, note by London (North) Regional Office, 3 June 1959. One particularly notable example of this occurred in relation to the arrival of 200 Cypriot immigrants. Following adverse newspaper coverage and letters from their constituents, at least five MPs wrote to the NAB asking for information on how to reply to allegations of scrounging. The NAB advised them to inform their constituents that claims that the Cypriots had immediately sought National Assistance were ‘pure speculation’. PRO, AST 7/1878, Letters from E. E. Bullus, H. Butcher, B. Craddock, G. Nabarro, C. Soames, various dates. This arrival also attracted attention in Parliament. See Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (633), cols. 48–9, 26 January 1961; (634), col. 82, 9 February 1961; (638), cols. 468–70, 13 April 1961. For correspondence on black and Asian immigrants see PRO, AST 7/1878, B. R. Williams’ reply to C. M. Naismith, Private Secretary to M. McLaren MP, 22 December 1960: ‘in general, our impression of coloured immigrants has been that they are very ready to work and anxious to earn the good wages available in this country.’ The same file contains a report on a visit to the Kensington South Area Office of the NAB by George Rogers MP on 21 July 1959, at which he raised the question of ‘coloured applicants’ and made clear his support for taking ‘strong

220 Notes

81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

97.

98. 99. 100. 101.

action’ against the ‘younger “work-shy” type’. Yet another example of an MP asking for advice on how to respond to constituents’ claims regarding National Assistance can be found in PRO, AST 7/1881, L. Cleaver MP to P. Hornsby-Smith, 3 May 1961. The NAB suggested Cleaver respond by stating reports that immigrants were a ‘substantial burden on public funds are not borne out by the facts’. Cited in LPA, Labour Party Research Department: Race Relations and Immigration, 1958–68. Commonwealth Dept. Doc. No. 9, 1960–1. This paper was prepared for the Commonwealth Sub-Committee of the National Executive Committee. The Economist, 25 February 1961. PRO, AST 7/1880, G. Beltram to Ms. Hope-Wallace, 9 July 1962. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: working party report, 7 February 1961. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: working party report, 31 July 1961. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: minutes, 31 July 1961. Ibid. Ibid. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: working party report, 29 September 1961. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: minutes, 29 September 1961. News of the World, 8 July 1962. Bedford Record, 9 October 1962. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (653), cols. 183–4, 15 February 1962; Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (661), col. 66, 6 June 1962. J. Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Collins, 1987), p. 265. Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 13. Ibid., p. 10. Following publication of the White Paper, Lambeth Borough Council, where some 30,000 immigrants had settled, issued a statement which largely supported its assessment. The statement reported that the ‘chronic housing situation’ was the most pressing problem regarding immigrants, and asserted that ‘the immigrant population have made considerable contributions to the welfare of the Country, both economically and socially’. Immigration from the Commonwealth: Statement by the Council of the London Borough of Lambeth (Lambeth Borough Council, 1965). K. Jones, ‘Immigrants and the Social Services’ (National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1967) in LPA, Labour Party Research Department: Race Relation and Immigration, 1958–68. The Times, 18 August 1967. PRO, HO 344/311, Memorandum on Replies to Ministers’ Cases, 19 September 1967. Quoted in S. Cohen, Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2001), p. 183. Quoted in Ibid., p. 34.

Notes 221 102. See R. Hansen and D. King, ‘Illiberalism and the new politics of asylum: liberalism’s dark side’, Political Quarterly 71:4 (2000), pp. 396–403.

Chapter 5 ‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation 1. The Observer, 25 November 2001. 2. The Guardian, 21 February 2000. 3. Although the very high level of agreement with the 2001 statement may be influenced by the use of the phrase ‘different ethnic background’ rather than ‘black or Asian’. Notwithstanding this change of phrasing, the figures do indicate a relaxation of taboos about mixed marriages. 4. Y. Alibhai-Brown, Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining the New Britain (London: Allen Lane, 2000), p. 2; D. Parker and M. Song (eds), Rethinking ‘Mixed Race’ (London: Pluto Press, 2001), p. 2. 5. An exception to this is Wendy Webster’s Imagining Home: Gender, ‘Race’ and National Identity, 1945–64 (London: UCL Press, 1998). Webster addresses constructions of gender, race and national identity from 1945 to 1964. However, she focuses on personal narratives and does not consider the impact of these issues on immigration policy-making. 6. I use the terms ‘interracial sexual relations’ and ‘miscegenation’ throughout this chapter. Neither is unproblematic, especially the latter, and my usage perhaps requires justification. In using the term ‘miscegenation’ I do not mean to endorse it, nor to lend credence to its many cognate concepts (most especially the now refuted idea that distinct races of human beings do indeed exist), but rather to remain true to the period considered here. Where appropriate I refer to interracial intimate relations, mixed sexual relationships, and mixed marriages. 7. M. Song, Choosing Ethnic Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), p. 61. 8. P. Baxter and B. Sansom (eds), Race and Social Difference (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 185. 9. There are numerous variations on this second theme, including claims that the children of mixed relationships are born infertile, or with poor health or low intelligence. The view that ‘half-caste’ children inherit the worst characteristics of each parent, or are degenerate, can be seen as a way of stigmatising children of mixed parentage, and thus rendering them socially disadvantaged, as well as a means of discouraging reproduction by mixed couples in the first place. This often figures in pragmatic arguments against interracial sexual relations. 10. N. Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 95. 11. A. Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890–2000, (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001), p. 26. 12. S. Cole, Races of Man (London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1963), p. 9. 13. This traversing of class distinctions was probably true of sexual taboos in general. Ross McKibbin concludes his survey of class culture during the years 1918–51 by reporting that when it came to sexual taboos ‘there is

222 Notes

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

little evidence that one class was markedly more “liberal” than another’. R. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 523. See also Ch. 8 of McKibbin’s study. For a fuller treatment of this history see S. L. Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race and Madness (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985); R. Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990); A. Lively, Masks: Blackness, Race and the Imagination (London: Vintage, 1998); A. McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London: Routledge, 1995); A. L. Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (London: Duke University Press, 1995); and R. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (London: Routledge, 1995). W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover, 1994 [1903]), p. 6. F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 188. Cited in Lively, Masks, p. 38. Cited in J. Walvin, Black and White: A Study of the Negro in English Society, 1555–1945 (London: Allen & Lane, 1973), pp. 52–5. Lively, Masks, 20–2. Such views are discussed by Edward Said in his classic study of Western conceptions of the East, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995). An interesting literary treatment of colonial intermixing can be found in V. S. Naipaul’s novel, Half A Life (London: Picador, 2001), which explores the ‘half-world’ of a Portuguese African colony. Wendy Webster refers to an ‘anxiety about white masculinity’ against which we should understand black male sexuality as a threat to white femininity. Webster argues that at a time of imperial decline, as colonial countries claimed back property in their land and resources, black male immigrants compounded this emasculation by wresting white males’ property in women from them. Webster, Imagining Home, p. xiv. D. Reynolds, Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945 (London: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 218. Quoted in ibid., p. 231. On the British Government’s attitudes towards black GIs see D. Reynolds, ‘The Churchill Government and the black American troops in Britain during World War II’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1984), pp. 113–33. Quoted in Reynolds, Rich Relations, p. 225. See D. King, Separate and Unequal: Black Americans and the US Federal Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 133–6. G. Smith, When Jim Crow Met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain (London: Tauris, 1987), p. 118. Ibid. Mass Observation Archive, Archive File Report 1569, 22 January 1943. See also PRO, RG 19/337, ‘Immigrants’ varieties of experiences’ by P. Collison, 26 June 1969. R. E. Kennedy, The Irish: Emigration, Marriage and Fertility (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 80. Kennedy discounts for the

Notes 223

33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

withdrawal of British personnel after the Anglo-Irish War in the years 1921–2. See E. Delaney, Demography, State and Society (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 47–8. Derived from Delaney, Demography, State and Society, p. 162, 231. Although these data were not broken down by destination, it is reasonable to assume that the gender ratio of emigration to Britain was close to the overall ratio, especially considering that Britain was the primary destination for Irish emigrants. Ibid., pp. 134–5, 187–9, 258–9. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls, Great Britain 1937–1975 (New York: Random House, 1976), September 1958; LPA, Labour Party Research Department, Race Relations and Immigration, 1958–68, copy of J. Darragh, ‘The coloured people of Birmingham’. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls, September 1958. S. Patterson, Dark Strangers: A Study of West Indians in London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p. 248. Gallup, Survey on ‘Coloured People in Britain, 1964’ for the Daily Telegraph. Table 10: Social problems; race relations. Copy supplied to the author by the Gallup Organization. M. Banton, The Coloured Quarter: Negro Immigrants in an English City (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955), pp. 150–81. A. H. Richmond, The Colour Problem: A Study of Racial Relations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955), p. 243. Daily Sketch, 15 October 1954. Underlining in original. Ibid. Daily Sketch, 18 October 1954. Daily Sketch, 13–25 October 1954. The British Universities Film and Video Council, Newsreel Project: British Paramount Newsreel, Issue 2337, BUN 044499, 23 November 1953. The project incorporates many other newsreels on immigration and black and Asian people in Britain. See www.bufvc.ac.uk. On the Appiah-Cripps wedding see also Picture Post, 30 October 1954. Other mixed marriages also received attention. See the News Chronicle, 31 May 1958; and the Daily Herald, 19 July 1958. The Times, 15 July 1957. J. Moore, The White Sparrow (London: Collins, 1954). C. MacInnes, City of Spades (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1957), pp. 68–9, 271. Picture Post, 30 October 1954. For similar articles see the Daily Express, 19 July 1956, and Daily Telegraph, 19 July 1956. P. Griffiths, A Question of Colour? (London: Leslie Frewin, 1966), p. 89. Picture Post, 30 October 1954. Daily Sketch, 23 October 1954. Churchill expressed this fear to Sir Hugh Foot, the Jamaican Governor, in 1954. Quoted in R. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain: The Institutional Origins of a Muticultural Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 3.

224 Notes 55. Quoted in J. Solomos and L. Back, Race, Politics and Social Change (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 48. 56. P. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 120–44. 57. Quoted in Banton, The Coloured Quarter, p. 152. 58. Although an article in the British Medical Journal, 4 October 1958, did advocate caution regarding intermarriage as ‘the strictly biological prospects are unfortunately obscure’. And as late as 1964 the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) felt the need for a set of Proposals on the Biological Aspects of Race, including the following: ‘9. It has never been proved that interbreeding has biological disadvantages for mankind as a whole. … [N]o biological justification exists for prohibiting inter-marriage between persons of different races, or for advising against it on racial grounds.’ Quoted in Baxter and Sansom, Race and Social Difference, p. 68. 59. G. C. L. Bertram, West Indian Immigration (London: Eugenics Society, 1958), p. 5. 60. Ibid., pp. 19–20. 61. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Report by Commander 1, Lambeth, 2 March 1952. 62. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Reports by various senior Metropolitan Police officers, March–April 1952. 63. PRO, MEPO 2/9047, Report by Chief Superintendent F Division, Hammersmith, 27 March 1952. 64. PRO, MEPO 2/9563, Report by Scotland Yard for the Home Office, October 1954. 65. PRO, MEPO 2/9563, Report by District Commander’s Office, Paddington Green, 8 October 1954. 66. PRO, CO 876/232, Memorandum by J. Waring Sainsbury for the Advisory Panel of the Metropolitan Boroughs’ Standing Joint Committee, 21 January 1952. 67. PRO, CO 876/255, Proposed survey of colonial people in the UK: Report by Peyton Short, July 1950. 68. Only one Indian and one Pakistani were convicted for living on the immoral earnings of women in the Metropolitan Police District during 1951–9. 69. See The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry, Cm. 4262 (London: HMSO, 1999). 70. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (549), cols. 1885–6, 5 March 1956. See also Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 739 ff., 16 November 1961, for a defence of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill on similar lines by Harold Gurden (Con.). 71. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (549), col. 1884, 5 March 1956. 72. Daily Mail, 9 July 1957. 73. Z. Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration: Immigration, ‘Race’ and ‘Race’ Relations in Post-war Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 73–4. 74. M. Rowe, The Racialization of Disorder in Twentieth Century Britain, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998). 75. PRO, LAB 26/198, A. Handyside to J. G. Stewart, 10 January 1949. 76. PRO, LAB 26/198, Report by M. L. Smith on disturbances in National Service Hostels Corporation due to incompatibility of various Nationals,

Notes 225

77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

97.

2 December 1947. The official admitted that his account was based on hearsay. Daily Mirror, 10 August 1949. PRO, LAB 26/198, J. G. Stewart to Oldbury Town Clerk, 16 August 1949. PRO, LAB 26/198, J. G. Stewart to R. H. Bindloss, 31 December 1949. D. M. Downes, The Delinquent Solution (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 219. Hindustan Times, undated clipping in PRO, HO 344/106, Working Party on Coloured People Seeking Employment in the United Kingdom: Enquiry to Chief Constables sent on 10 March 1953, and replies. This account is based on E. Pilkington, Beyond the Mother Country: West Indians and the Notting Hill White Riots (London: Tauris, 1988). Ibid., p. 129. The Times, 27 August 1958. One such agitator, Colin Jordan, circulated his Black and White News in the area, with headlines such as ‘Blacks seek white women’ (3 September 1958). He claimed that ‘mass interbreeding’ would be the ‘downfall of this country.’ See Coventry Standard, 19 September 1958. Jordan was a school teacher. He was investigated by the Coventry Education Committee, which decided that no action would be taken against him as long as his beliefs were ‘kept out of the classroom’. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 29 September 1958. Reported in the Kensington News, 26 September 1958. Daily Mirror, 3 September 1958; Daily Mail, 3 September 1958; The People quote is from Pilkington, Beyond the Mother Country, p. 131. IRR, Unpublished transcripts of tape recorded interviews conducted for the IRR by Barry Carman, 1958. For some personal testimonies of hostility towards those who were themselves in mixed relationships see M. & T. Phillips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (London: HarperCollins, 1998), pp. 154–7, 198–9. IRR transcripts. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. PRO, CO 876/231, Report by the Area Officer of the Colonial Office Welfare Department in Liverpool, 16 November 1950. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (532), col. 824, 5 November 1954. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, 1956. Memorandum by the Lord Chancellor, 27 February 1956. Ibid. This very last point is a remarkable foresight. As Iain McLean has argued, in the late 1960s Enoch Powell was highly successful in winning support for the Conservatives from traditional Labour constituencies based on his stance on immigration, which appealed to many Labour core voters. During this period the immigration issue cut across class lines of voting. I. McLean, Rational Choice and British Politics: An Analysis of Rhetoric and Manipulation from Peel to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), Ch. 5. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 27 February 1956.

226 Notes 98. PRO, CAB 134/1210, Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants: minutes, 25 April 1956. 99. PRO, CAB 129/81, CP (56) 145, Report of the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, 22 June 1956. 100. PRO, PREM 11/1409, Conclusions of the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, 20 November 1956. 101. PRO, CAB 129/81, Cabinet memorandum, 4 October 1956. 102. See I. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The Making of MultiRacial Britain (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 51. 103. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (606), col. 1148, 11 June 1959. 104. PRO, CAB 134/1467, Progress report of the Working Party on Social and Economic Problems presented to the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Immigrants, 22 July 1959. 105. PRO, AST 7/1878, Payment of National Assistance to colonial and Commonwealth immigrants: anonymous memorandum, undated 1959. 106. PRO, LAB 8/2867, Distribution of overseas residents in England and Wales: research paper of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, undated 1963. 107. Its full title was the Working Party on the Social and Economic Problems Arising from the Growing Influx into the UK of Coloured Workers from other Commonwealth Countries. 108. PRO, DO 35/7991, Report of the Working Party, June 1960. 109. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Working Party report presented to the Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee, 16 February 1961. 110. PRO, AST 7/1880, Memorandum from Midland Regional Office to National Assistance Board, 15 November 1962. 111. PRO, LAB 8/2867, Research into social and economic effects of coloured immigration, Treasury memorandum, undated 1961. 112. PRO, CAB 134/1469, Cabinet Commonwealth Migrants Committee: minutes, 31 July 1961. 113. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (649), col. 696, 16 November 1961. 114. PRO, LAB 8/2713, Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. Committee Stage: notes on amendments to Clauses 1–3, February 1962. 115. Common law wives included. 116. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 20. 117. PRO, LAB 8/2713, General note on Government amendments dealing with returning residents, wives and children, February 1962. 118. PRO, HO 376/139, Research paper by P. S. Khera, 3 March 1965. 119. PRO, HO 376/139, Note by Maurice Foley, Joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of Economic Affairs, undated. 120. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (754), col. 464, 15 November 1967. 121. See Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962: Statistics, Cmnd. 2379, 2658, 2979, 3258, 3594 (London: HMSO, 1962–8). 122. See Spencer, British Immigration Policy, p. 135. 123. One wonders if it was merely a coincidence that this shift occurred following the attainment of a gender balance among Caribbean immigrants. 124. Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. x. 125. This last requirement was short-lived. It was discontinued by Roy Jenkins in August 1966 as it was proving administratively burdensome and could

Notes 227

126.

127. 128. 129.

130. 131. 132.

be halted ‘without detriment to the immigration control’. For deliberations leading up to the announcement to Parliament on 2 August 1966 see PRO, HO 344/206, Admission of dependants of Commonwealth immigrants: future of the scheme, 1965–6. Cited in Spencer, British Immigration Policy, p. 139. Spencer also points out that an important result of the changes in the rules governing dependants was a shift in the regional origins of migrants. Since the large majority of South Asians living in Britain in 1965 were males, whereas immigrants from the Caribbean were by that time more evenly balanced in terms of gender, in future the majority of dependants would be South Asian females and children. This was true to varying degrees among different South Asian groups according to their economic capacity and cultural commitment to family unification. Spencer, British Immigration Policy, p. 137. PRO, HO 344/287, Howell to Crossman, 18 January 1968. PRO, CAB 129/135, C (68) 34, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, 12 February 1968. PRO, HO 344/287, Memorandum for the Official Committee on Commonwealth Immigration by T. Fitzgerald, Home Office, November 1967. The Home Office was aware that the two-parent rule might conflict with the ECHR. Although it was concerned about a possible legal challenge it did not think this sufficient reason not to proceed. For Callaghan’s assessment of the new rule see Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (770), cols. 395–6, 25 October 1968. N. Deakin, Colour, Citizenship and British Society (London: Panther Books, 1970), p. 53. CIA 1968 Section 2 (2) (b). PRO, HO 344/287, Memorandum for the Official Committee on Commonwealth Immigration by T. Fitzgerald, Home Office, November 1967.

Chapter 6

Public Health and Immigration Policy

1. To my knowledge, only one, cursory research paper exists on public health and immigration controls in Britain. See D. Hayes, Race, Health and Immigration Control (Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University Press, 1998). In recent years there have been numerous studies made of the health of black and Asian communities, although these tend to focus on contemporary issues and do not address public health and the development of immigration controls. For example: W. I. U. Ahmad, ‘Race’ and Health in Contemporary Britain (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1994); R. Balarajan and S. V. Raleigh, Ethnicity and Health in England (London: HMSO, 1995); J. Nazroo, The Health of Britain’s Ethnic Minorities: Findings from a National Survey (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997). The Department of Health has also published two reports on these issues: Z. Alexander, A Study of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Issues (London: Department of Health, 1999); Department of Health, The Race Equality Agenda of the Department

228 Notes

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

of Health (London: Department of Health, 2000). Two edited volumes contain several interesting studies of migration and health issues around the world: W. Ernst and B. Harris (eds), Race, Science and Medicine, 1700–1960 (London: Routledge, 1999); L. Marks and M. Worboys (eds), Migrants, Minorities and Health: Historical and Contemporary Studies (London: Routledge, 1997). B. Parekh et al, The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (London: The Runnymede Trust, 2000), pp. 189–90. M. Moran and B. Wood, States, Regulation and the Medical Profession (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993). See D. King, ‘Liberal and illiberal immigration policy: a comparison of early British (1905) and US (1924) legislation’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1:1 (2000), pp. 78–96. Aliens Act of 1905, Section 1 (3) (b). Aliens Act of 1905, Section 3 (1) (b) (i). Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (145), col. 804, 2 May 1905. For the pre-history see A. Hardy, Health and Medicine in Britain Since 1860 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 100–1, 112–3. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1963 (London: HMSO, 1964), p. 72. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1962 (London: HMSO, 1963), p. 70. British Medical Journal (hereafter BMJ), 16 July 1949. BMJ, 14 July 1951. BMJ, 12 May 1951. BMJ, 22 December 1951. BMJ, Supplement, 10 June 1961. Medical Press, 31 December 1958. BMJ, Supplement, 10 June 1961. BMJ, 21 April 1951; cf. BMJ, 21 July 1951. Evening Standard, 11 February 1953; BMJ, 14 March 1953. Daily Express, 7 February 1959; Empire News, 8 February 1959. Manchester Guardian, 30 October 1959. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (515), col. 2234, 21 May 1953. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (512), col. 51, 5 March 1953. PRO, CAB 129/77, CP (55) 102, Memorandum by the Home Secretary, 22 August 1955. Parliamentary Debates (Lords) (200), cols. 398–9, 20 November 1956. Parliamentary Debates (Lords) (200), cols. 404–17, 20 November 1956. See Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1962 (London: HMSO, 1963). PRO, MH 148/27, BMA note to Ministry of Health, 6 November 1961. Ibid. Three years later Henry Brooke, then Home Secretary, was to summarize the difficulties attached to examinations in country of origin at a meeting of the Conservative Party’s Immigration Policy Group as follows: ‘Medical control

Notes 229

31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

45.

in country of origin was no use unless the many points of embarkation were covered. How would one insure that the medical check was thorough? Could British doctors be used? Would the countries concerned be prepared to accept such an arrangement?’ He concluded by asserting that ‘there was the danger that such measures might give a false sense of security’. CPA, CRD 3/16/1, Immigration Policy Group: Minutes, 1965–6. PRO, MH 148/27, Ministry of Health note to BMA, 28 November 1961. Of course this was not the first time in recent history that the BMA had conflicted with the Government. The BMA’s opposition to the National Health Service Act of 1946 is well known. See the classic study by H. Eckstein, Pressure Group Politics: The Case of the British Medical Association (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960), pp. 92–4. CIA 1962 Section 2 (4) (a). PRO, MH 148/31, Commonwealth immigrants medical examination: proposals to integrate long stay immigrants into the NHS. Discussions with representative local authority and medical associations, 1961–7. BMJ, Supplement, 14 April 1962. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1962 (London: HMSO, 1963). PRO, MH 148/27, Note from the Urban District Councils Association to the Ministry of Health, 20 November 1962. Ibid. PRO, MH 148/28, Circular to GPs, undated 1963. This circular accompanied a draft of the information card which was to be distributed to selected immigrants at ports of entry and other locations, including Labour Exchanges. See W. Holland and S. Stewart, Public Health: The Vision and the Challenge (London, 1998), p. viii. See Hardy, Health and Medicine, pp. 147–52. National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants, Summary of the PEP Report on Racial Discrimination (London: National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants, 1967), p. 7. Ibid., pp. 7–8. For example, 43 per cent of Britons surveyed in November 1964 expressed a preference not to have ‘coloured people as neighbours’ (26 per cent responded ‘rather not’ and 17 per cent ‘strongly dislike’). This compared with 5 per cent who said they would be ‘pleased’, 44 per cent who ‘did not mind’, and 8 per cent who replied ‘don’t know’. Gallup Organization survey on ‘Coloured People in Britain, 1964’ for the Daily Telegraph. Table 10: Social problems; race relations. Information supplied to the author by Gallup. Sunday Times, 30 July 1961. In an echo of allegations about welfare parasitism discussed in Chapter 4, some reports claimed that the NHS acted as a magnet to sick colonial citizens, that ‘health-scroungers’ migrated to Britain in awareness of their medical condition with the specific intention of availing themselves of the health services. Thus The Times reported on a doctor who claimed: ‘the best investment a Pakistani with T.B. can make is a one-way ticket to England. He will be admitted to hospital and get three months there at £25–£30 a week – the normal cost of a bed – and

230 Notes

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71.

72.

treatment afterwards at a weekly cost of 10s. to £1. He will then be on assistance for some weeks before he goes back to work. It all adds up to something in the region of £500. You have no option but to do it, because he is a source of infection for others if you do not do it. There is no proof that this happens, but it is known that they do it. One or two have admitted it.’ The Times, 20 January 1965. Wolverhampton Express & Star, 7 April 1964. The Times, 31 March 1964. BMJ, 19 December 1964. Yorkshire Post, 7 January 1965. See, for example, Daily Sketch, 17 July 1964; Oxford Times, 25 July 1964; Rochdale Observer, 8 August 1964; Manchester Daily Express, 23 October 1964; Birmingham Mail, 1 March 1965; Guardian, 8 March 1965; Yorkshire Post, 11 March 1965. CPA, CCO 4/6/151, Report of a meeting of the West Midlands Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 21 November 1955. Ibid. CPA, CCO 4/8/138, Pamphlet for Birmingham City Council elections, 11 May 1961. CPA, CRD 3/16/1, Immigration Policy Group, manifesto points, 7 July 1965. Fenner Brockway had been Labour MP for Eton and Slough, but lost his seat in the 1964 election. He was given a peerage later that year. Pannell also lost his seat in the 1964 election. Lord G. Elton, The Unarmed Invasion: A Survey of Afro-Asian Immigration (London: G. Bles., 1965), p. 7. Ibid., p. 50, 53. Ibid., pp. 74–5. Ibid., p. 12, 20. Ibid., p. 68. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (709), col. 417, 23 March 1965. Elton, The Unarmed Invasion, p. 47. His opinion was echoed by another prominent restrictionist, Peter Thorneycroft, who was Spokesman on Home Affairs for the Conservatives. See Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (709), cols. 340–1, 23 March 1965. Elton, The Unarmed Invasion, p. 42. N. Pannell and F. Brockway, Immigration: What is the Answer? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 17, 22, 50, 52. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid., p. 68. Ibid., pp. 90–5, 105. Ibid., p. 116. CPA, CRD 3/16/1, ‘Bradford’s Immigrant Problem’, paper by Arthur Tiley MP, presented to the Conservative Immigration Policy Group, 30 April 1965. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Hygiene’, Tiley remarked, ‘causes great offence. In factories, our people will not use their toilets. The immigrants must be made to conform to our ways.’ PRO, MH 148/28, Survey undertaken by F. Ridehalgh, July 1963.

Notes 231 73. PRO, LAB 8/2867, Research into social and economic effects of coloured immigration, 1963–5. 74. PRO, MH 148/31, Commonwealth immigrants medical examination. Proposals to integrate long-stay immigrants into the NHS. Discussions with representative local authority and medical associations, 1961–7. 75. PRO, MH 143/31, Roffey to various, 16 June 1964. 76. PRO, MH 143/31, Report of Seisdon Council, undated. 77. Ibid. 78. PRO, MH 148/28, Report of the Ministry of Health party on a visit to the Health Control Unit at London Airport, September 1963. 79. Parliamentary Debates (Lords) (261), cols. 1199–202, 3 December 1964. 80. Ministry of Health, Annual Report of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1965, Cmnd. 3039 (London: HMSO, 1966), p. 65. 81. PRO, MH 148/29, Commonwealth immigrants: medical examination, x-ray of immigrants at ports, 1964–6. 82. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1962 (London: HMSO, 1963), p. 65. 83. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1963 (London: HMSO, 1964), p. 64. The lack of differentiation here makes analysis difficult. What is significant is that West Indians were the only regional group separately identified in the Chief Medical Officer’s Report. 84. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1962 (London: HMSO, 1963), p. 65. 85. Ibid., p. 66. 86. Ibid., p. 67. Emphasis added. 87. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1963 (London: HMSO, 1964), p. 68. 88. Ibid., p. 70. 89. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1964 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 71. 90. See Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1963 (London: HMSO, 1964). 91. Ibid., p. 70. 92. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1964 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 73. 93. See, for example, J. F. Skone, Public Health Aspects of Immigration (London: National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants, 1968). 94. PRO, HO 376/139, Commonwealth Immigration Committee, paper on Ten Minute Rule Motions, 2 June 1965. 95. PRO, PREM 13/383, Copy of minute from Lord Mountbatten of Burma to the Prime Minister, 13 June 1965.

232 Notes 96. At the 1962 Annual Representative Meeting. See BMJ, Supplement, 11 May 1963. 97. BMJ, 11 December 1965. 98. Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmnd. 2739 (London: HMSO, 1965), p. 9. 99. Ibid., p. 9. 100. Ibid., p. 14. 101. Skone, Public Health Aspects of Immigration, p. 6. 102. PRO, MH 148/31, Roffey to Lord Taylor, 1 January 1965. 103. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1965 (London: HMSO, 1966), p. 73. 104. PRO, MH 148/31, Commonwealth immigrants medical examination. Proposals to integrate long-stay immigrants into the NHS, 1966–7. 105. Although, as a note to the table indicates, New Commonwealth immigrants comprised generally less than half of the total number of Commonwealth citizens entering during these years. Nevertheless, even if all refusals were of New Commonwealth immigrants (we have no way of telling, although it seems likely that the vast majority would have been) the proportion of refusals was still low at around 1 in every 5,000. 106. See J. Hampshire, ‘Immigration and race relations policies’ in P. Dorey (ed.), The 1964–70 Labour Governments (London: Frank Cass, forthcoming). 107. Cited in The Times, 4 April 1967. 108. CIA 1968, Section 2 (1A). 109. Ministry of Health, On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the Year 1968 (London: HMSO, 1969), p. 64. 110. Department of Health and Social Security, Annual Report of the Department of Health and Social Security for the Year 1968, Cmnd. 4100 (London: HMSO, 1969), p. 74.

Chapter 7 The Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Demographic Change 1. C. Boswell, European Migration Policies in Flux: Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003). 2. P. Gilroy, There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (London: Routledge, 1987), p. 51. 3. See J. Solomos, Race and Racism in Britain. 3rd Edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), p. 65. 4. Cited in A. Geddes, The Politics of Immigration and Race (Manchester: Baseline Books, 1996), p. 58. 5. On education see E. Bleich, ‘Re-imagined communities? Education policies and national belonging in Britain and France’ in A. Geddes and A. Favell (eds), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 65–6. 6. On citizenship under New Labour see E. Frazer, ‘Citizenship and culture’ in P. Dunleavy, A. Gamble, R. Heffernan, I. Holliday and G. Peele (eds),

Notes 233

7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

Developments in British Politics 6. Revised Edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 203–18. On recent debates about British national identity see the special issue of The Political Quarterly 71:1 (2000). The contrast with France is drawn out in A. Favell, Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain. 2nd Edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 96. M. Everson, ‘ “Subjects” or “citizens of Erewhon”? Law and non-law in the development of a “British citizenship” ‘, Citizenship Studies 7:1 (2003), p. 82. The Commission was established in December 1988. Its members were appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Bernard Weatherill, who acted as Patron and supplied a foreword to its report. Commission on Citizenship, Encouraging Citizenship: Report of the Commission on Citizenship (London: HMSO, 1990). Ibid., p. 6, 12. The section of the report entitled ‘Belonging to a Community and Knowing the Rules’ does not offer any analysis of informal, cultural understandings of belonging. The idea that there may be different modes of belonging within and compatible with a single political community is not broached. Ibid., pp. 4–5. The report states that its consultative conference ‘supported Marshall’s definition, subject to updating the language’. Ibid., p. xv. Home Office, Fairer, Firmer, Faster: A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum, Cm. 4018 (London: HMSO, 1998), Ch. 10. www.archive.officialdocuments.co.uk/document/cm40/4018/chap-10.htm Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, Cm. 5387 (London: HMSO, 2002), Section 2.2. www.officialdocuments.co.uk/document/cm53/5387/cm5387.pdf Ibid., Foreword. The point is repeated in the Executive Summary on p.10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid., Section 2.19–21. Ibid., Section 2.13. The degree to which this is a valid criticism depends, in part, on how high the bar is set. Language tests can be used as exclusive devices, but they can also be used to aid integration. Indeed, the Home Office defends testing for linguistic competence on integrative grounds. Of course in some polyethnic and multinational states multiple languages are officially recognised, but Britain arguably does not face the historical, social or geographical circumstances which would make this either feasible or desirable. L. Back, M. Keith, A. Khan, K. Shukra and J. Solomos, ‘New Labour’s white heart: Politics, multiculturalism and the return of assimilation’, The Political Quarterly 73:4 (2002), p. 453. See also C. Joppke and E. Morawska (eds), Towards Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003) on recent trends towards assimilationist approaches to citizenship. B. Parekh et al, The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (London: The Runnymede Trust, 2000), esp. Ch. 1. The report argues that ‘a genuinely multicultural Britain urgently needs to re-imagine itself’. In particular, it argues that Britain’s de facto multiculturalism is not sufficiently acknowledged and the multi-ethnicity of Britishness has been underplayed. Influenced by its Chair’s expertise and advocacy of multicultural political theory, the report argues

234 Notes

23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

that Britain should be redefined as a ‘community of communities’; future policies should reflect British ethnic diversity and foster public awareness of diverse cultural practices. For a critique of the press coverage see S. Shah, ‘Get your facts right first, please’, The Guardian, 20 October 2000. See The Observer, 22 September 2002. 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/ acts1999/19990033.htm 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2002/20020041.htm S. Ringen, ‘Fewer people: a stark European future’, Times Literary Supplement, 28 February 2003. United Nations, World Population Policies 2003. Population Indicators: United Kingdom. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2003/WPP 2003%20web/Countries/WPP2003%20Frame.htm. In developed countries long-term population stability is attained with a birth-rate of about 2.1. UNPF, State of the World Population 2002: People, Poverty and Possibilities (New York: United Nations Publications, 2003), quoted in Ringen, ‘Fewer people’, p. 9. D. G. Papademetriou, ‘The newest age of migration’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. 49. UNPD, Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to a Declining and Ageing Population?, (New York: United Nations Publications, 2000), p. 93. See http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/migration/chap5.pdf. M. Kleinman, ‘The economic impact of labour migration’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. 69. S. Feld, ‘Labour force trends in the European Union (2000–2025) and international manpower movements: an initial look’, unpublished paper quoted in Kleinman ‘The economic impact of labour migration’, p. 69. See D. King, Actively Seeking Work? The Politics of Unemployment and Welfare Policy in the United States and Great Britain (London: University of Chicago Press, 1995) pp. 167–202; D. King, In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 226–57. United Nations, World Population Policies 2003. Government views and policies: United Kingdom. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ wpp2003/WPP2003%20web/Countries/WPP2003%20Frame.htm. I leave aside here the ethical questions raised by international migration’s impact on sending societies, which often lose their ‘best and brightest’, in many cases after having educated and trained them. See Chapter 3, Section 3. M. Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983), p. 32. The British National Party’s stance can be found at http://www.bnp.org.uk/ policies.html#immigration. One of UKIP’s ‘five freedoms’ on which they campaigned in the 2004 European elections was ‘freedom from overcrowding’. See: http://www.independenceuk.org.uk/index.php?menu= fivefreedoms&page=fivefreedoms3.

Notes 235 39. A. Mote, Overcrowded Britain: Our Immigration Crisis Exposed (Petersfield: Tanner Publishing, 2003), p. 2. 40. YouGov poll, 26 May 2004, http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2004/05/26/nvote126.xml. 41. A. Browne, Do We Need Mass Immigration? The Economic, Demographic, Environmental, Social and Developmental Arguments Against Large-Scale Net Immigration to Britain (London: Civitas, 2002), p. 139. 42. http://www.migrationwatchuk.org. 43. See Daily Mail, 1 May 2004; 2 April 2004; 24 January 2004; 14 November 2003. Also Daily Telegraph, 24 February 2004; 22 September 2003. 44. See J. L. Simon, The Economic Consequences of Immigration (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999); cf. G. Freeman, ‘Migration and the political economy of welfare’, Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Sciences 485 (1986), pp. 51–63. 45. D. Held, A McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Cambridge: Polity, 1999), p. 313. 46. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) (213), col. 22, 2 November 1992. 47. S. Spencer (ed.), Strangers & Citizens: A Positive Approach to Migrants and Refugees (London: IPPR/Rivers Oram Press, 1994), p. 308. 48. T. Boeri, G. Hanson and B. McCormick (eds), Immigration Policy and the Welfare System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 74. 49. Ibid., p. xiv. 50. A. Geddes, ‘Migration and the welfare state in Europe’ in S. Spencer (ed.), The Politics of Migration: Managing Opportunity, Conflict and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. 158. 51. D. Blunkett, ‘Towards a civil society’, Speech at the Labour Party Conference, September 2003. 52. T. Blair, Speech to the CBI, 27 April 2004. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ uk_politics/3661261.stm. 53. R. Hansen and D. King, ‘Illiberalism and the new politics of asylum: liberalism’s dark side’, Political Quarterly 71:4 (2000), pp. 396–403. 54. For example, on the BBC current affairs programme, Newsnight, the Director of the homelessness charity, Shelter, claimed that the Government’s policy on benefits for asylum seekers was forcing many to sleep rough. A Home Office Minister defended the policy, saying that 72 hours was a reasonable amount of time to allow claims. Newsnight, 8 January 2004. 55. Prospect, February 2004. 56. See the Prospect website for a range of responses to Goodhart’s thesis. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk. 57. M. Bommes and A. Geddes (eds), Immigration and Welfare: Challenging the Borders of the Welfare State (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 1. 58. Ibid., pp. 8, 139–45. 59. A. Browne, ‘The secret threat to British lives’, Spectator, 25 January 2003, p. 11. 60. ‘Secret plan to screen refugees for diseases’, Independent on Sunday, 25 May 2003. 61. Cited in The Economist, 9 August 2003. 62. R. Coker, ‘Compulsory screening of immigrants for tuberculosis and HIV’, British Medical Journal (hereafter BMJ) 328, 7 February 2004, p. 298.

236 Notes

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

The arguments are elaborated in more detail in R. Coker, Migration, Public Health and Screening for TB and HIV (London: IPPR, 2003). Downloadable at http://www.ippr.org/publications/files/Health%20screening% 20FINAL.pdf. M. E. J. Callister et al, ‘Pulmonary tuberculosis among political asylum seekers screened at Heathrow Airport, London, 1995–9’, Thorax 57 (2002), pp. 152–6. S. Asch, et al, ‘Why do symptomatic patients delay obtaining care for tuberculosis?’, American Journal Crit Care Med 157 (1998), pp. 1244–8. Coker, ‘Compulsory screening’, p. 299. Coker, ‘Compulsory screening’, p. 299. Coker, ‘Compulsory screening’, pp. 299–300. All-Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS, Migration and HIV: Improving Lives in Britain (London: 2003), p. 76. http://www.appg-aids.org.uk/Publications/ Migration%20and%20HIV%20Improving%20Lives.pdf. BMJ 328, 10 April 2004. BMJ 328, 10 April 2004. http://www.migrationwatch.co.uk/pdfs/Health_consequences.pdf. Independent, 7 June 2004. http://www.healthwatchuk.co.uk/about.php. H. Sergeant, No System to Abuse: Immigration and Healthcare in the UK (London: Centre for Policy Studies, 2003). Conservative Party, Before It’s Too Late: A New Agenda for Public Health (London: Conservative Party, 2003). The Economist, 9 August 2003.

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Index Adams, Sir Grantley, 70 AIDS, see HIV/AIDS aliens, 60, 87, 151, 155 Aliens Act 1905, 9, 151 Aliens Order 1953, 155 Aliens Restriction Act 1914, 9 Amery, Julian, 142 Amin, Idi, 42 Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921, 26 anti-Semitism, 9 aquatic metaphors for immigration, 188 assimilation, 13–14, 31, 46, 54–5, 57, 59–60, 69, 70, 72–3, 106, 113, 184 see also integration, limitation-integration equation Asylum and Immigration Act 1999, 110 asylum seekers, 2 policies on, 184, 191–2 stigmatization of, 110, 184, 191–2 Attlee, Clement, 20, 26, 63 Balfour, Arthur, 151 Banton, Michael, 120 ‘beat the ban’ rush, 25, 66, 102 belonging as grounds for immigration controls, 12, 13, 16–17, 24–5, 30, 35, 37, 38, 41–2, 75–7 idea of, 12, 20, 180 relationship to demography debate, 54–5 renegotiated since 1990s, 181–3 and welfare state, 83–4, 85, 192–3 see also patriality Bertram, G. C. L., 126 Bevan, Aneurin, 81 Beveridge, Sir William, 81 Social Insurance and Allied Services (Beveridge Report), 84–5 views on population, 48–9, 84 Bindloss, R. H., 134 Birmingham Immigration Control Group, 73 birth-control, 48–51, 52 birth-rate, see population concerns blackness as metaphor for evil, 114–5

Blair, Tony, 190–1 Blunkett, David, 183, 184, 190 Bommes, Michael, 193 Booth, Charles, 6 Boyle, Sir Edward, 105–6 British Medical Association demands for medical examination of immigrants, 15, 150–1, 155–6, 157, 173 dissatisfaction with government policy, 175 British Nationality Act 1948, 13 British Nationality Act 1981, 13, 42–3, 180 British National Party, 19–20, 187 Britishness as an ethnic not civic identity, 12, 180 ‘fully established society’, 54–5, 78, 187 and imperial role, 49–50, 54, 58–9 rebranding of, 181, 182–3 see also belonging, citizenship Brock Committee, 8 Brockway, Fenner, 142, 165–6 Bromley Davenport, Sir W., 97 Brook, Sir Norman, 66, 71 Browne, Anthony, 188, 194 Buck v. Bell, 7 Burleigh, Michael, 7 Butler, R. A., 23, 27, 28, 30, 32, 37, 69, 145 Callaghan, James, 13, 35–6, 37, 75–6, 107, 110 Caribbean immigrants, see West Indians Carman, Barry, 137 census, 5 Centre for Policy Studies, 197 Chadwick, Edwin, 6 Charles, Enid, 48, 50 Chief Medical Officer, 157–8, 170–2, 177–8 Churchill, Winston, 63, 92, 127 citizenship British citizenship, 43, 180 changes in since 1990s, 181–4 247

248 Index citizenship – continued Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC), 10, 11, 13, 17, 19–20, 38, 42 conception of in 1980s, 180 Marshallian conception of, 82–4, 182 weakness of in post-war Britain, 12 compare belonging Civis Britannicus sum, 20, 22–4, 38, 76, 89 Clarke, Kenneth, 189 Cohen, Steve, 109 Coker, Richard, 194–5 Cole, Sonia, 113 Coleman, David, 56 Colonial Office, 24, 61, 87 ‘colour bar’, see racism Colwyn, Lord, 169 Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), 77 Commission on Citizenship, 181–2 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, 25–6, 29–31, 70–1, 157 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, 34–9, 75–7, 177 Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council (CIAC), 32, 74 communism, 90 Conservative Party, 23, 28, 34, 39, 162, 197 Cordeaux, J. P., 97 crime immigrants and drugs, 122–3 immigrants and prostitution, 91, 127–32 see also police reports on immigrants Cripps, Sir Stafford, 122 Crossman, Richard, 148 Crowley, John, 83 Dahle, Ulf, 196 Deedes, W. F., 132 decolonization, see imperial decline demographic deficit, 2, 45, 185–6 see also population concerns demographic governance definition of, 2–3 history of, 4–9 demographic predictions of immigrant population, 73–4, 143 dependants policy, 145–9 gender bias in, 146–7

motivations for, 114, 138, 145–6 rights of entry, 29 tightening up of, 148–9, 177 dependency ratio, 185–6 ‘Dick Whittington’ trope, 80, 93 discrimination, see racism displaced persons, 59, 60 drugs, see crime Du Bois, W. E. B., 114 Düvell, Franck, 2 economic impact of immigration, 190–1 elections, immigration as an issue in, 33–4 Elton, Lord, 162–4 emigration policy, 3, 8, 47, 54, 55, 58–9 Empire Settlement Act 1922, 8, 47 Empire Windrush, 19, 20, 62 employment of immigrants, 66, 68, 107–8 see also labour recruitment, unemployment Ennals, David, 73–4 eugenics, 7–8, 48, 50, 56, 126 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), 37, 145–6 European immigrants, 55, 59, 60–1 distinguished from colonial immigrants, 61–2, 68, 72, 87 European Volunteer Workers (EVWs), 60–1, 133–4 Fanon, Frantz, 114–5 female immigrants, see gender Finer, S. E., 6 Fisher, Nigel, 93, 142 Foot, Paul, 33 Foucault, Michel, 4, 6 Fox, Liam, 197 free movement of British subjects, see ‘open door’ policy Free Passage Scheme 1919, 8, 47 Gaitskell, Hugh, 26, 27 Geddes, Andrew, 193 gender different attitudes to male and female immigrants, 124–5, 149 imbalance viewed as a social problem, 14, 138, 142–3, 149 and interracial sexual relations, 116, 124–5

Index 249 ratio of male to female colonial immigrants, 113, 118, 147–8 ratio of male to female Irish immigrants, 119 see also dependants policy Gerrard, Neil, 194 Glass, D. V., 51 gonorrhoea causes of increase in, 153, 171 incidence among immigrants, 171 Goodhart, David, 192–3 Gordon-Walker, Patrick, 26, 34 Green, Sir Andrew, 189 Griffiths, Peter, 33–4, 124 guest-workers, 1, 9 Haig, Sir Harry, 116–7 ‘half-caste’ pathology, see miscegenation, mixed race children Hansen, Randall, 27, 69–70, 191 Harris, Reader, 154 Hattersley, Roy, 31–2 health, see public health Healthwatch UK, 196 Heath, Edward, 39, 41 Held, David, 189 Hennessy, Peter, 23 High Skills Workers Programme, 186 HIV/AIDS, 193, 194, 195 Hogben, Lancelot, 48 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 7 Home Office, 60, 76–7, 89–90, 108–9, 147, 149, 158, 173 Hopkinson, Henry, 23, 97 Horder, Lord, 51 housing, 46, 68–9, 160–1 see also overcrowding Howell, Dennis, 148 Hubback, Eva, 56–7 Hynd, John, 97, 139 immigrants, depiction of, see newspapers, police, racial stereotypes Immigration Act 1971, 39–42 Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, 184 immigration causes of, 20, 86, 93 initial government reactions to, 20, 62–3, 87–8 trends, 66–7, 71–2 immigration policy administrative controls, 11, 16, 21–2 non-economic rationale, 30, 70, 104–6

shift to soliciting strategy, 179, 189, 197–8 stemming/soliciting distinction, 9 targets of, 13–14, 40, 45, 66, 67, 69–71 three stages of, 18 as a tool of demographic governance, 3, 8–9, 11, 46–7, 51, 59, 185–6 see also dependants policy, ‘open door’ policy, racial demography, racism; see also under individual acts imperial decline fears of, 47–51 impact on immigration policy, 23–4 Indians, 134, 152 Institute of Race Relations, 137 integration, 31–3, 74–5, 108 of immigrants into health services, 158–9, 167–8, 174–5 interracial sexual relations attitudes towards, 54–5, 111, 113, 119–26 as cause of social tensions and violence, 14–15, 111, 117, 121, 128, 132–8 in colonies, 115–6 incidence of, 140, 143 see also miscegenation Ireland, Republic of, 24 Ireland Act 1949, 26 Iremonger, T. L., 93 Irish citizens, 24–5, 118–9 and Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, 26–9 Isaacs, George, 62, 134 Jamaicans, 20, 62, 133–4 see also West Indians Jewish immigrants, 8–9, 73, 151 Jim Crow laws, 112 Jones, Sir Elwyn, 36 Joppke, Christian, 9, 17–18 Jordan, Bill, 2 Karatani, Rieko, 17, 26 Kennedy, R. E., 118–9 Kenyan Asians crisis, 34–7 Keynes, John Maynard, 48 Khan, Shahid, 196 Kilmuir, Viscount, 99 King, Desmond, 191 Kymlicka, Will, 83

250 Index Labour Party, 31, 34 labour recruitment colonial labour, 61–2, 66, 87–8 European labour, 60–1 myth of large-scale recruitment, 20–1 labour vouchers, 29–30, 32, 71, 72, 105, 106 Lafitte, Francois, 86 Layton-Henry, Zig, 33 limitation-integration equation, 31–2, 35, 40, 65, 74–5, 76–7, 173, 183 literature about immigrants, 123 Lloyd-George, Gwilym, 25, 64, 65, 154–5 Local Government Act 1966, 175 local government and medical examinations, 167–8 London (Heathrow) Airport, 168–9, 194 London Transport, 62 Long, Edward, 115 Lucan, Lord, 155 MacInnes, Colin, 123 Macleod, Iain, 99, 154 Macmillan, Harold, 21, 27, 28, 70–1 Malthus, Thomas, 5 Mancroft, Lord, 155 Marshall, T. H., 12, 81, 82–4 Mass Observation, 51, 117 Maudling, Reginald, 39 Maxwell-Fyfe, David, 22, 64, 96 medical examination of immigrants demands for, 155–6, 158, 168, 173, 196–7 exemptions, 157, 177 immigrants refused entry on medical grounds, 175–6 measures at ports of entry, 155, 168–9, 174, 177 measures before embarkation, 169, 178 problems with, 194–6 see also British Medical Association, integration Metropolitan Police, see police reports on immigrants Middleton, Lord, 155 Migration Watch, 188–9, 196 Ministry of Health: resistance to compulsory medical examinations, 150–1, 156–7 Ministry of Labour, 61, 88, 89, 100, 102

miscegenation antipathy to, 115, 116, 120, 125–6 Cabinet Committee debate on, 139–42 reason for antipathy towards, 112–3 see also interracial sexual relations mixed race children, 125–6, 137 Montserrat, 93 Moore, John, 123 Mote, Ashley, 187 Mountbatten Report 1965, 32, 173 multiculturalism, 181, 182–3, 192–3 National Assistance, see welfare state National Assistance Board (NAB), 88, 98, 103, 142–4 National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI), 32, 33, 74, 160 National Health Service allegations of ‘benefit tourism’, 196–7 immigrants’ contribution to, 150–1, 164 national identity, see Britishness National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 108–9 National Insurance, see welfare state Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, 110, 184, 191 National Labour Party, 136 National Services Hostels Corporation (NSHC), 133–4 Nazi Germany, 7 New Commonwealth, 10 newspapers depiction of immigrants’ living conditions, 160 on interracial sexual relations and miscegenation, 121–3, 124–5 reaction to 1958 riots, 136 representation of immigrants as scroungers, 94–5, 107 Newton, Lord, 168 Notting Hill, see riots the ‘numbers game’, 13, 46, 73–4 Old Commonwealth citizens distinguished from New Commonwealth citizens, 39, 40–1, 42, 72, 188 emigrants to, 19, 54 ‘open door’ policy, 21, 23, 64–5 Osborne, Sir Cyril, 73–4, 97, 154, 173

Index 251 overcrowding Britain as an overcrowded island, 28, 46, 59, 65, 70, 72–3, 187–9 in areas of immigrant settlement, 65, 99, 159–60 linked with public health threat, 160–1, 162 Pakistanis, 102, 118, 148, 149, 157, 161 Pannell, Norman, 72–3, 97, 107, 164–5 Papademetriou, Demetrios, 185 Parekh Report, 184 Parliamentary debates on early immigrants, 62–3 on immigrants and prostitution, 131–2 on immigrants and public health, 154–5, 169 on immigration legislation, 26, 28–9, 37, 41, 70 on welfare scrounging, 96–7 patriality, 39–40, 41–2 Patterson, Sheila, 33, 120 Paul, Kathleen, 17 Peake, Osbert, 96 police reports on immigrants, 81, 90–3, 127–9 see also crime Political and Economic Planning (PEP), 33, 57–9, 159–60 population concerns birth-rate of indigenous population, 47–9, 56, 185 fears of depopulation, 7, 47–51 international implications of population decline, 47–8, 56–7, 58 birth-rate of immigrant groups, 144 see also racial demography population growth in Europe, 4–5 population policy, 53–6, 57–9, 185–6 Porter, Dorothy, 6 Powell, Enoch, 39, 42, 74, 166 problematization of immigration, 10, 46–7, 54, 63–4 pronatalism, see population policy prostitution, see crime public health, 150–78 in anti-immigrant discourse, 161–5, 194 immigrants’ impact on, 15, 68, 90, 154–5, 173–4, 194 see also individual diseases

public opinion towards immigrants/immigration, 1–2, 35, 188 Quine, Maria Sophia, 6–7 Race Relations Act 1965, 33, 74 Race Relations Acts 1968, 74 Race Relations Act 1976, racial demography, 11, 12–13, 45–7, 54–5, 59–61, 65–6, 69–70, 72–3, 76–8, 187–8, 198 racism discrimination in employment, 64 discrimination in housing market, 159–60 discrimination in welfare provision, 109–10 influence on immigration policy-making, 3–4, 11, 14, 17–18, 26, 40–1, 45–7, 69–71, 76–7 quotas at hostels, 134 racial stereotypes civilization, supposed lack of, 65, 88, 122, 133 hygiene, 151, 160 indigence, 79, 88, 90–1 moral standards, 91, 127–9, 144 sexuality, 115, 120–1, 123, 124, 137 refugees, see asylum seekers Remnant, Peter, 96 Renton, David, 102 Rex, John, 33 Rich, Paul, 125 Richmond, Anthony, 120 Ridehalgh, F., 167 riots, 68, 135–6 see also violence Roach, John, 6 Robinson, Kenneth, 154 Rose, E. J. B., 33, 118–9 Rowe, Michael, 132 Royal Commission on Population, 46, 52–6 Saggar, Shamit, 31 Salt, John, 56 Sandys, Duncan, 27, 68, 74 scrounging, see welfare parasitism Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme, 186 sexuality, see racial stereotypes Sharp, Clifford, 48, 50

252 Index Shaw, George Bernard, 7 Shepherd, William, 131 Short, Peyton, 129 smallpox, 157–8, 166 Smethwick, 33–4 Smith, Graham, 117 Snow, Julian, 73–4 social security, see welfare state social tensions, 108 South Africa, 112 Spencer, Ian, 21, 100, 147 Spencer, Sarah, 189 Steel, John, 136 Steward, William, 96 Straw, Jack, 184 Sumerskill, Baroness, 169 Supplementary Benefit Act 1966, 19 Swann Report 1985, 181 syphilis causes of increase in, 170–1 incidence among immigrants, 153–4, 170 Taylor, Lord, 169 Tebbit, Norman, 181 Thatcher, Margaret, 181 Thomson, George, 36 Tiley, Arthur, 166 Titmuss, Richard, 49, 51, 81 Treasury’s opposition to immigration controls, 105–6 tuberculosis in Empire/Commonwealth, 152–3 among immigrants, 154, 173, 194 mortalities, 152 Turkish Cypriots, 97 Ugandan Asians, 42 unemployment among immigrants, 88, 89, 99–102 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), 187–8 United Nations Population Division (UNPD), 185–6

United Nations Population Fund, 185 US Army Black GIs in Britain, 116–7 segregation in, 116–7 venereal diseases associated with immorality, 154 in Empire/Commonwealth, 153 incidence of, 153–4, 161 policy on, 171–2 see also gonorrhoea, syphilis vice, see crime violence between Britons and immigrants, 134–5 between EVWs and colonial immigrants, 133–4 see also riots Wakefield, Lord, 169 Waugh, Auberan, 38 Weaver, General William A., 116 welfare parasitism, 14, 79–81, 86–98, 110, 122, 191–2 challenged, 81, 98–106, 108–9, 190 in relation to NHS, 196–7 welfare state as attraction to immigrants, 87–8, 89, 93 and citizens of new EU countries, 191, 193 diversity and, 192–3 foundations of, 8, 79–80, 81–6 impact of immigration on, 108–9, 189–93 social security schemes, 80, 85–6 West Indians, 20, 29, 62, 70, 87, 94–5, 102, 103–4, 118, 144, 148, 152, 155 West Indies Commission, 103–4 West Indies Federation, 106 Wiles, Sir Harold, 61–2 workfare schemes, 186