Britain and the New Commonwealth: the Problem of Immigration

Abstract

Like the old Commonwealth, the new was vulnerable to sudden crises. Yet while Suez echoed Chanak, it evoked a similar resilience. Far more difficult to contain were the running sores of Kashmir, South African racial policies, and internal Commonwealth migration. The principles of the new Commonwealth — free association, partnership, multiracialism and non-discrimination — together with the old imperial slogan ‘Civis Britannicus sum’ appeared to guarantee all subjects of a dependency or former dependency the right to enter and reside in the UK. While some Commonwealth countries had long imposed restrictions on the immigration of other Commonwealth (including British) subjects, HMG (ever since the issue of overseas Asians had divided the Dominions at the 1921 Imperial Conference) had fought shy of raising the contentious issue at Prime Ministers’ Meetings (DOC 38). After the war, it was unwilling to tamper with its own tradition of an open-door policy in ways that would damage Britain’s reputation in the free and Third worlds. The British Nationality Act 1948 supplanted common allegiance to the Crown with the concept of separate citizenships for Commonwealth states but retained the status of ‘Commonwealth citizen’ endowed in Britain (albeit in Britain only) with the rights of a British subject.