Lesson 2: Immigration to Post-War Britain (1945-1962): From Laissez-Faire to Restrictionism

Question 1

Introduction

A decisive period for the transformation of the UK into a multicultural nation

Answer 1

• 1948-1962: “the Laissez-Faire Years”: important liberality of migration policy
• Massive immigration from Europe and beyond Europe:
• -> 1948-1962: 500,000 primary migrants entered the country
• Migration flows from the British colonies and the Commonwealth became prominent:
• -> 1939: less than 10,000 blacks and Asians in Britain
• -> 1951: 17,218 West Indians in Britain, up to 173,659 in 1961.
• -> 1946-1951: 30,000 Chinese migrated to Britain
• -> Beginning of South Asian migration in the 1950s.

Question 2

What are the objectives of this lesson?

Answer 2

• Account for the sudden reversal in migration flows, from a country of emigration to the colonies to massive immigration from the colonies and the Commonwealth
• Understand the paradoxes of British policy on immigration and British attitudes to migrants:
• -> Widespread disapproval of immigration among the general public and sections of the political body.
• -> Yet Laissez-faire policy maintained until 1962: introduction of controls debated, but rejected.

Question 3

Outline of this lesson

Answer 3

1) The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
2) Primary Immigration from the ‘New Commonwealth’
3) British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?

Question 4

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.1. From War to Reconstruction: Migration in the 1940s
   What immigration flows existed during WW2?

Answer 4

Refugees during WW2:
- French and Belgian refugees arrived in 1940
- Many refugees from Eastern Europe, especially Poland:
–> 1939: the Polish government in exile in London with 20,000 soldiers and airmen
–> July 1945: 220,000 Poles serving in the Polish Forces in the West under British command
- 1943: European refugee population of 114,000
As a response to the war effort, labour migration was encouraged during WW2:
- From Ireland:
–> High unemployment in Ireland
–> Agreement signed between the British Ministry of Labour and the Irish Department of Industry and Commerce
- From the West Indies:
–> Direct recruitment by the British government for work in munitions factories
–> A few hundred technicians with specialised skills also recruited to work in war factories (Merseyside, Lancashire).
Restrictions on Alien and coloured sailors lifted:
- Increase in the number of Chinese sailors and lascars on British soil:
–> Some of them employed in munitions and other industries (Coventry, Birmingham).
–> 1939: 100 Indians in Birmingham; 1945: 1,050 Indians in Birmingham.
Military service:
- c. 60,000 Irishmen in the British Armed Forces
- over 13,000 West Indians in the British Armed Forces

Question 5

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.1. From War to Reconstruction: Migration in the 1940s
   What happened with the war-migrants after WW2?

Answer 5

After the war, most refugees and labour migrants left Britain (esp. West Indians)
Some of the migrants of WW2 stayed:
- 500 Chinese granted permission to remain by Home Office
- Poles:
–> Polish Resettlement Act, 1947: granted British citizenship to 200,000 Poles
–> Polish population in Britain: 44,642 in 1931 ; 162,339 in 1951.
- Many refugees from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, or Ukraine recruited by the British state as European Volunteer Workers.

Question 6

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.1. From War to Reconstruction: Migration in the 1940s
   Which newcomers were there in the immediate post-war years?

Answer 6

European Volunteer Workers:
- People from continental Europe invited to work in Britain between 1946 and 1951
- Most of them recruited by the British State in European Displaced Persons Camps: These were camps which existed in various parts of Europe to give temporary shelter to refugees who could not yet go back home for various reasons (no home left, no family, not safe). (still 800,000 in these camps in 1947)
- c. 90,000 EVWs settled in Britain
- A humanitarian refugee resettlement programme, with important economic advantages for Britain:
–> Recruited to work in specific branches (unskilled manuel jobs disaffected by the British native population)
–> Changes in jobs or residence subject to official approval
–> Repatriation possible.
Direct recruitment of Irish migrant workers:
- 1946-7: around 30,200 Irishmen provided British government assistance to come and work in mining, agriculture, or as nurses.
- No more government incentives in the following years; Irish migration continued because of the attractiveness of the British labour market.
Ministry of Labour scheme to recruit c. 15,000 Italians for specific jobs (brick industry, metallurgy, coalmining)
=> From 1946 to 1953, an estimated total of 228,000 Europeans and their families entered Britain with work permits.
Less enthusiasm for the recruitment of workers from the colonies:
- Labour PM Clement Attlee considered resorting to colonial and Commonwealth migration to fill labour vacancies, but rejected it in favour of European migrant workers.
- Some large companies organised direct recruitment in the West Indies in the late 1940s (British Rail, London Transport, the NHS, British Hotels and Restaurants Association), but not the Ministry of Labour.
- June 1948: arrival of the 500 first post-War colonial immigrants on board the Empire Windrush returning from Jamaica
- Unexpected and rather unwelcome by the British government: the ship was supposed to bring immigrants back to the Caribbean, not bring them to Britain. cf. Creech Jones (Colonial Secretary) in Cabinet memorandum: “[the movement] was certainly not organised or encouraged by the Colonial Office or the Jamaican Government. On the contrary, every possible step has been taken by the Colonial Office and the Jamaican Government to discourage these influxes.”

Question 7

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What did the BNA entail?

Answer 7

The BNA gave imperial citizenship to around 800,000,000 British subjects and therefore a statutory right to enter the UK.

Question 8

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   Why was the BNA passed if colonial immigration was unwelcome?

Answer 8

The main objective was not to deal with immigration. The primary aim behind the passage of the BNA was the constitutional status of British subjects; it was passed in order to maintain a uniform status for all British subjects and to preserve strong bonds with the ‘Old Commonwealth’ at a time when it was increasingly asserting its independence from the UK in foreign affairs and nationality law.

Question 9

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What were the basic notions on the Commonwealth in the BNA?

Answer 9

Basic notions on the Commonwealth:

• The Commonwealth of Nations:
• -> The organisation which was gradually formed to bring together, on a voluntary basis, the former British colonies, once they became independent sovereign states. Formally created through the Statute of Westminster (1931). Today includes 54 countries.
• Dominions (or Commonwealth realms after 1952):
• -> Independent nations within the British Commonwealth that share with the UK the same person as their monarch (e.g. Canada).
• The Old Commonwealth:
• -> The Commonwealth countries that had Dominion status before 1945 (Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa)
• The New Commonwealth:
• -> The Commonwealth countries which obtained their independence from the British Empire after 1945.

Question 10

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What was the context of the BNA?

Answer 10

Context:

• Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946:
• -> Established a Canadian citizenship separate from the status of British subject
• Late 1940s: the Old Dominions were still central to British foreign and economic policy
• -> Essential for Britain to maintain a strong bond throughout the Empire and Commonwealth
• Commonwealth conference, London, 1947:
• -> The UK and the self-governing dominions would each adopt separate national citizenships, but retain the common status of British subject.

Question 11

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What are the 6 categories of citizenship in the BNA?

Answer 11

1) Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC)
2) Citizens of Independent Commonwealth countries (CICC)
3) Irish British subjects
4) British subjects without citizenship
5) British Protected Persons
6) Aliens

Question 12

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What are the dispositions of the BNA?

Answer 12

Categories 1 and 2 (CUKCs and CICCs): covered the vast majority of British subjects, granted the same rights:
- Free entry in the UK
- Access to employment not restricted
- Right to vote in elections, to sit in Parliament and work for the British government.
When the Bill was passed, only Canada fell in the 2nd category (CICC), but it was intended to apply soon to:
- the other Old Dominions
- the new dominions of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
3rd category: Irish citizens allowed to retain British subject status:
- Solving nationality problems related to Ireland’s change of status since 1922
- Reflection of the important value attached to Irish immigration

Question 13

1. The Political and Economic Reasons of Post-War Laissez-Faire
   1.2 The British Nationality Act (BNA), 1948
   What was the impact of the BNA?

Answer 13

• People born throughout the British Empire had always been British subjects and had always had the right to enter the UK.
• Yet, this constitutional convention was now given statutory protection.
• The BNA provided for the maintenance of privileges associated to British citizenship for the citizens of former colonies that obtained their independence.
  –> Between 1948 and 1962, New Commonwealth citizens:
• Had the right to enter the UK
• Were in law full British citizens
  The BNA did facilitate migration from the New Commonwealth, but it was not intended to have that effect:
• Parliamentarians’ attachment to the Commonwealth; belief in Britain’s unique obligation as head of the empire to maintain an open door for all its subjects.
• No one imagined that mass migration from the colonies to Britain would occur. Main reference was former imperial migration flows: mainly between Britain and the Old Dominions or temporary movement of colonial subjects.

Question 14

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.1. General explanatory factors
   What were the push and pull factors for immigrants from the New Commonwealth to come to the UK?

Answer 14

General push factors:
- World demography:
–> Very important population growth in three of the areas that provided the UK with its most important immigration: the Caribbean, South Asia and Hong Kong.
- Importance of factors specific to each country of emigration
General pull factors:
- Constitutional factors:
–> Laissez-faire approach to Empire and Commonwealth immigration
–> British subject status
- Economic factors:
–> Disparities in terms of wealth and opportunities
–> Context of post-war reconstruction: strong demand for labour in the UK
- Cultural/imperial factors:
–> Close contacts with Britain (education, press, language…)
- Favouring factor:
–> Extensive improvements in transportation: increased the likelihood of migration.

Question 15

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.2 West Indian migration to Britain
   Overview of West Indian migration to Britain

Answer 15

Arrival of Empire Windrush (June 1948) as symbolical departure point of Caribbean immigration
From a small trickle to a massive influx:
- 1948-1951: below 1,000 West Indian immigrants per year.
- The number of West Indian migrants entering Britain each year doubled in 1952 and 1953, reaching 2,000.
- The most significant influx took place between 1954 and 1962: over 10,000 newcomers per year, over 65,000 in 1961.
Sharp increases in West Indian migration in the early 1950s and then in the early 1960s:
- 1952 : change in US immigration policy (the Immigration and Nationality Act = McCarran-Walker Act):
–> Number of immigrants from the West Indies limited to 800 per year, only 100 of whom could come from Jamaica.
=> Encouraged West Indians to turn to Britain instead.
- Late 1950s-early 1960s: ‘beat-the-ban’ effect
- Cumulative effect: chain migrations
1961: 173,659 people of Caribbean origin living in Britain.
- Most of them came from Jamaica.
- Others originated in Antigua, Anguilla, Barbados, Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana,Montserrat, St Kitts, St Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago.
- All of them still part of the British Empire in the 1950s-early 1960s.
=> Most migrants not foreign nationals but British subjects.

Question 16

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.2 West Indian migration to Britain
   What were the specific push and pull factors for West Indian migration to Britain?

Answer 16

Specific push factors:
- Rapid population growth
- Important economic difficulties, especially in Jamaica:
–> Agricultural crisis: over-production in the sugar industry.
–> 25% unemployed in Jamaica in the 1940s.
–> Underdevelopment: the largest concentrations of West Indians in Britain came from those islands with the lowest per capita national income.
Specific pull factors:
- Economic recovery and reconstruction in Britain
- Direct recruitment by some companies (e.g. British Rail, London Transport, NHS, British Hotels and Restaurants)

Question 17

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.2 West Indian migration to Britain
   What were the characteristics of West Indian migrants?

Answer 17

High proportion of women and even kids
Employment and social status:
- Very often skilled, rarely poor
- Loss of status on arrival in England:
–> 63% in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs (22% in the Caribbean).
–> 90% of professionals only found manual jobs in London.
–> 1961: 6% of West Indian males unemployed (3.2% for English men)
Areas of settlement:
- London (Notting Hill); Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham; Bristol, Liverpool.

Question 18

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.3. South Asian primary migration to Britain
   Overview of South Asian migration

Answer 18

South Asians started to arrive in Britain in the 1950s and early 1960s as CICCs (independence 1947-8).
- Free entry up to the introduction of controls in 1962
Important variety within this group:
- Ethnic/national origin: India, Pakistan, East Pakistan (Bangladesh from 1971), Sri Lanka.
- Religions:
–> Nearly all Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, as well as some Indians are Muslims (70% of British Muslims today have South Asian origins)
–> Indians are multi-religious: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsees, Christians, Buddhists…
Major increase in number of South Asian migrants between 1960 and 1962:
- Beat-the-ban effect
- Informal controls set on South Asian migrants
–> 1950s: Passports commonly withheld from Pakistanis and Indians wishing to emigrate (many illegal migrants with forged passports).
–> until 1966 (Indian Supreme Court making it illegal to withhold passports from Indian citizens), issuance of passports considered a discretionary instrument of the Indian government to conduct foreign relations.

Question 19

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.3. South Asian primary migration to Britain
   What were the push and pull factors for South Asian migration to Britain?

Answer 19

Push factors:
- The Partition of India, 1947:
–> Created 13 million refugees
–> No massive direct impact upon migration to Britain, but an indirect impact:
—> Created a history of migration for millions of people; lack of strong attachment to new residence.
—> Sikhs’ dissatisfaction with the settlement
—> Impact of Partition on sailors: place of residence and port of employment in different countries for many Pakistani and Sylhetti sailors (Calcutta, Bombay)
—-> Minority populations in India more likely to migrate to Britain
Economic factors:
- Pressure on land ressources, esp. in Gujarat and Punjab.
- Important poverty in Pakistan and East Pakistan:
–> Poor quality of farming land
–> Little industrialisation
- Construction of Mangla Dam, Mirpur, from 1961:
–> 250 villages submerged
–> Over 110,000 people displaced
–> Migration to Britain encouraged by the Pakistani authorities
- Escaping the caste system
–> Most Mirpuri immigrants belonged to low castes.
Encouraging factors:
- Long traditions of migration in some part of the subcontinent:
–> Punjabis: around 50% of the Indian battalions of the British army
–> Mirpuris and Sylhettis: often served as lascars in the merchant navy
–> Kashmiris, Punjabis and Sylhettis: migrant workers recruited by the British Empire for the construction of the Indian railway network.
- Travel agencies in Pakistan and in India specialised in advertising and facilitating immigration.
- Potential migrants encouraged by often distorted reports sent to India and “English houses”.

Question 20

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.3. South Asian primary migration to Britain
   What was the importance of chain migrations?

Answer 20

Particularly strong for immigration from Pakistan and East Pakistan:

• Chains resting on strong kinship ties
• -> Example of sailors working in Britain during the war
• -> Initial post-war migrant financed by close relatives
• -> Once settled, used his savings to help another relative join him
• -> The two of them sponsored other members of the kinship group (job, accommodation)
• Study of Oxford’s Pakistani community (c. 2000 people) conducted by Alison Shaw in the 1990s:
• -> Just two chains accounting for this diaspora, one of which started with a man who settled in Glasgow during WW2.

Question 21

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth
   2.3. South Asian primary migration to Britain
   What were the common characteristics of early South Asian immigration?

Answer 21

Almost only men in the 1950s-early 1960s:
- Bradford, 1961: 3,376 Pakistani men, but only 81 women.
Settled in large conurbations:
- London
- Around Birmingham and Manchester
- East Midlands, esp. Leicester
- North: Pakistanis in Bradford
- Lancashire (esp. Rochdale): Pakistanis in the textile industry.
Social characteristics of early South Asian immigration:
- In their country of origins: not among the poorest:
–> Sikh Punjabi: commonly from rural areas, but often intermediate status, with some property.
–> Some Sikhs and most Gujarati Hindus: urban and educated backgrounds with professional occupations.
–> East and West Pakistanis: often from a rural background; generally poorer and with lower levels of education.
–> A minority of East and West Pakistanis had been middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs.
On arrival in Britain:
- Indians:
–> Some managed to maintain professional occupations
–> Higher unemployment than native Britains
–> Unskilled or semi-skilled employment in metallurgy, textile and the manufacturing industry.
- Sylhettis often employed in restaurants
- Pakistanis:
–> Massively employed in unskilled manual jobs
–> very often in the textile industry
–> often on night-shifts.

Question 22

2. Primary immigration from the New Commonwealth

2. 4 Other diasporas

Answer 22

Immigration from other parts of the British Empire and Commonwealth, esp. Hong Kong:
- Expansion of the Chinese population of Britain:
–> About 30,000 Chinese arrived between 1946 and 1962.
–> 1951 census: 2,217 Chinese
–> 1961 census: 38,750 Chinese.
- Push factors:
–> Agricultural crisis in Hong Kong
–> Pressure on land in Hong Kong due to influx of refugees from China.
- Pull factors:
–> Development of the restaurant trade
–> Strong migration chains => dense concentrations in a few cities (Soho in London, Birmingham, Manchester: Chinatowns).
Immigration from British colonies in Africa:
- Areas of origin:
–> Mainly West Africa (the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia)
–> Also East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia) –> British subjects coming from British colonies
- Came as students or in search of employment and better life prospects
- Numbers of African immigrants to Britain
–> 1955-1960: between 1,300 and 2,800 people
–> 1961: over 18,000 people (beat-the-ban effect).
European immigration to Britain in the 1950s and early 1960s:
- Polish immigration slowed down
- 22,000 political refugees from Hungary, 1956.
- Italian immigration
- The Irish: still the largest immigrant minority in Britain.

Question 23

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
   What is the concept of ‘racialisation’?

Answer 23

‘Racialisation’:

• = the process through which racial categories are applied to relationships, social practices, or groups that previously were not classified using such categories.
• First introduced in 1961 by Frantz Fanon (1925-1961).
• Applied in the late 1980s to the question of immigration by sociologists like Robert Miles, Bob Carter, Clive Harris or John Solomos.
• Position criticised by several historians, in particular Randall Hansen.
• To what extent can we say that the 1950s and early 1960s were marked by a gradual racialization of attitudes to and representations of immigrants?

Question 24

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 1. Popular and Media Attitudes to Black and Asian migrants
5. 1.1. Discrimination and tensions in housing and employment

Answer 24

Housing:
- Acute housing shortage in the immediate post-war years
–> West Indian migrants in the least desirable housing (hostels, lodgers)
–> Irish immigrants also experienced difficult housing conditions
- ‘Colour bar’ continued in the 1950s and early 1960s
- Suburbanisation in the 1950s
–> Migrants occupied insalubrious flats or rooms in run-down inner-city areas vacated by the middle classes
–> No modern comfort and sanitary equipments
–> Overcrowding
–> Reinforced stereotypes (poor hygiene, dissolute lives)
- Tensions over attribution of social housing
- Large concentrations, crystallising hostility
–> London’s West Indians in Notting Hill, Brixton and Stepney
–> South Asians in the East End.
Employment:
- Competition for jobs sometimes increased animosity
- Migrants most often took jobs shunned by whites (O. Estèves):
–> South Asians: ready to work nights; doing long hours for smaller wages => worked with other South Asians more often than with native Britons: de facto segregation
- Contrasting attitudes to South Asians and West Indians
- Trade Unions’ ambiguous stance on immigration and controls
–> Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s official welcome in 1955
–> TUC strongly rejected racial discrimination
–> But occasionally pressed government for immigration controls

Question 25

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 1. Popular and Media Attitudes to Black and Asian migrants
5. 1.2. Media discourse on immigration: the construction of a ‘colour’ problem

Answer 25

• Widespread coverage of immigration in the press => construction of a ‘colour’ problem
• Newspapers showing sympathy for migrants:
• -> Daily Herald denounced the colour bar in 1954
• -> The New Statesman regularly rejected immigration controls.
• Yet: Mervyn Jones in The New Statesman, 1951:
• -> “…distinctively Negro quarters, on the American model, are coming into existence to replace the old cosmopolitan neighbourhoods normal before the war.”
• Many other national papers and media in favour of controls:
• -> The Sunday Times and The Daily Sketch
• -> Pathé newsreel entitled ‘Our Jamaican Problem’ (1955)
• -> Articles about supposed link between black settlements and the development of gangsterism and prostitution
• Cf. L. Chessum “Race and Immigration in the Local Leicester Press, 1945-62”. Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 17 (1998), pp. 36-56.
• -> Contrasts positive attitudes to white emigrants and negative attitudes to West Indian or South Asian immigrants
• -> Coverage of Louth MP Cyril Osborne’s writings
• -> Attention paid to South Africa’s early apartheid policies.

Question 26

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 1. Popular and Media Attitudes to Black and Asian migrants
5. 1.3. Anti-immigrants popular movements

Answer 26

Development of anti-immigrants movements:
- Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement (formed 1948)
–> Initially antisemitic, based in the East End;
–> Became anti-black in the 1950s: campaigned in Brixton, Notting Hill.
–> Little electoral success; disappeared in the 1970s.
- Birmingham Immigration Control Association (founded in 1960).
Outbreaks of popular violence:
- The Nottingham and Notting Hill riots, August 1958:
–> Hundreds of white youths attacked West Indians (‘nigger hunts’)
–> Mosley’s Union Movement played a part.
- The Middlesbrough riots, August 1961 (North Yorkshire)
Reactions to the Nottingham and Notting Hill riots :
- Produced nation-wide shock
- Sometimes ambiguous reactions in the press:
–> Cf. The Times, September 1958: “There are three main causes of resentment against coloured inhabitants in the district. They are alleged to do no work and to collect a rich sum from the Assistance Board. They are said to be finding housing when white residents cannot. And they are charged with all kinds of misbehaviour, especially sexual.”
- The riots and their coverage in the media transformed immigration into a national problem.

Question 27

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
   3.1. Popular and Media Attitudes to Black and Asian migrants
   Which associations and individuals supported immigrants in the 1950s and early 1960s?

Answer 27

Pro-migrant and anti-discrimination organisations formed by West Indians and/or South Asians:
- The Coloured Peoples’ Progressive Association
- The Indian Association (1958)
- The West Indian Workers’ Association (1961)
Umbrella organisations, with large white membership:
- The British Council of Churches
- The Coordinating Committee against Racial Discrimination (1962).

Question 28

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 1. Popular and Media Attitudes to Black and Asian migrants
5. 1.4. Sapphire (1959): The ambiguities of an anti-racist discourse

Answer 28

Film-director Basil Dearden:
- Born 1911
- Active from the 1940s to the 1970s
- Directed films belonging to different filmic genres.
- Critics: Dearden’s efficient classic technique, but impersonal style.
The social problem film:
- Draws on the conventions of other genres to tackle one of the burning issues of the day
- Several social problem films by Dearden and partner Michael Relph (producer, writer, designer): issues of criminality, youth delinquency (50s), racism (The Pool of London, 1951) and homosexuality (Victim, 1961)
Sapphire:
- 1959 BAFTA winner for Best British Film but critics not over-enthusiastic.
- Raises the issue of racism in Britain in the 1950s
- Occasional passing references to the 1958 riots
- Classic style
- Liberal agenda, but ambiguities in its anti-racist discourse
Analysing film extracts:
- Opening sequences (extr. 1-3)
- Early discoveries in the investigation (extr. 4-5)
- Interviewing potential witnesses (extr. 6-9)
- Searching a suspect’s room (extr. 10)
Conclusions on Sapphire:
- Liberal agenda, anti-racist project:
–> Denouncing the colour bar
–> A few commentary scenes: clear denounciation of racism
–> Shows a successful, middle-class black community.
- Not a radical anti-racist film:
–> Criticism of racial prejudices often remains weak.
–> Much space devoted to the expression of racist opinions
–> Sapphire’s character: in accordance with racial stereotypes.
–> Cf. critic Nina Hibbin: ‘You can’t fight the colour bar merely by telling people it exists. You have to attack it, with passion and conviction. Commit yourself to the hilt. Otherwise you’re in danger of fanning the flames.’ (Daily Worker, 9 May 1959)
–> ‘Colour’ presented as an essence, going beyond physical appearance.

Question 29

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 2. Attitudes to Immigration in Government and Parliament
5. 2.1.Debating Commonwealth Immigration in Parliament

Answer 29

Differences in attitudes to immigration corresponded less to party divisions than to intra-party divisions between backbenchers and frontbenchers
- Backbenchers responded to pressure by voters disgruntled by increased immigration
- Cyril Osborne officially called for immigration controls (1955 and 1958), using strong anti-immigrants rhetoric
- Labour backbenchers demanded immigration control after the 1958 riots:
–> Ex: George Rogers, MP for Kensington North
Such positions remained marginal in both parties:
- Wide commitment among Labour MPs for open-door policy and anti-discrimination legislation
- Osborne and other Conservative anti-immigrants MPs viewed with contempt by senior MPs (“the lunatic fringe”)
- 1950s: Conservative cabinet members rejected calls for restrictions on Commonwealth immigration in Parliament by voicing their commitment to the universalist principle of an equal status for all British subjects

Question 30

3. British Attitudes to New Commonwealth Immigrants: Racialising Immigration?
4. 2. Attitudes to Immigration in Government and Parliament
5. 2.2.Debating Commonwealth Immigration in Cabinet Meetings

Answer 30

Striking continuity in official attitudes to immigration between the late 1940s and the early 1960s:
- Both Labour and Conservative Cabinets tended to consider immigration as a problem (cf. Cabinet minutes):
–> Labour feared that an increase in Commonwealth and colonial immigration would create problems concerning housing, employment and law and order.
–> Jan. 1954: Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe claimed that the ‘coloured’ population of Britain largely depended on Welfare benefits and that it was disproportionately connected to criminal activities.
Yet: Rejection of statutory restrictions on Commonwealth immigration:
- Main reason: continued commitment to the Commonwealth and the idea of the UK as ‘the mother country’
–> Essential to preserve privileged links to Old Dominions
–> Cabinet discussions on the possible introduction of selective controls, restricting access for the residents of the New Commonwealth but not those of the Old Dominions
=> Forceful rejection of any ‘colour bar’ on New Commonwealth immigration: 1955, Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd threatened to resign if racially discriminatory restrictions were introduced.
Other reasons for the rejection of statutory restrictions on Commonwealth immigration:
- International standing and international relations
- British business interests
- Commitment to the principle of an open-door to all British subjects (less often mentioned than in Parliament)
- Tensions within Cabinets:
–> Home Office and Ministry for Labour pressing for immigration controls
–> Colonial Office resisted them
=> No consensus => Status quo maintained on immigration law.
No legislation on Commonwealth immigration, yet informal controls introduced on New Commonwealth immigrants:
- First introduced under Labour in the early 1950s, extended by Churchill’s Cabinet and strengthened in the mid-1950s.
- Variety of methods:
–> Publicity on problems faced by migrants on arrival in Britain;
–> Withholding passports, officially from those with little money or poor employment records, but colour played an important role
- Much more impact on immigration from South Asia and West Africa than on West Indian migration:
–> Different degrees of cooperation between local authorities and British government
–> Different attitudes in Whitehall to West Indians and South Asians.
- Historiographical debate on informal controls
–> Racialisation school: proof of the duplicity of the British government
–> Hansen: informal controls as an attempt to avoid passing legislation.
Much more impact on immigration from South Asia and West Africa than on West Indian migration:
Different degrees of cooperation between local authorities and British government
Different attitudes in Whitehall to West Indians and South Asians.
Historiographical debate on informal controls
Racialisation school: proof of the duplicity of the British government
Hansen: informal controls as an attempt to avoid passing legislation.

Question 31

Conclusion of the lesson

Answer 31

Changing historiographical interpretations of official attitudes towards immigration:

• Up to the mid-1980s: principle of an open-door policy for all British subjects abandoned with great reluctance
• From the mid-1980s: “racialisation school”: officials’ views of immigration informed by racial prejudice; governmental objective to redefine Britishness along racial lines.
• Need to qualify both positions:
• -> ‘Coloured’ immigration seen as a problem
• -> Yet, refusal of any discriminatory legislation
• -> Still, ministers (tacitly) accepted informal discriminatory practices
• Racialisation of popular attitudes
• -> Media representations
• -> Extreme-right movements
• -> Outbreaks of collective violence directed against migrants
• -> Ambiguities of anti-racist discourse: Sapphire.