Citizenship and Belonging: The Development of UK Immigration Policy

Abstract

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.