Britain's island story has traditionally been a narrative of industry, progress, liberalism at home and overseas, and the developing politics of race relations and experiments in progressive self-government around the world. Recent celebrations of Magna Carta, for example, as the benevolent root of constitutions globally, illustrate this long-term trend.

Behind this narrative lie public notions of British history that still cling to the importance of the Second World War. Recently, this has led to the decision to place the image of Winston Churchill on the reverse of the £5 note. Victory in 1945 is celebrated as Britain's ‘finest hour’ – either as a moment of national celebration or as a period in the growth of the welfare state. It is rarely viewed as a defining moment for British decolonisation, the effects of which both directly affected urban communities across Britain and indirectly produced modes of democratic co-existence, citizenship and social tolerance. Still less, have the public in general been invited to engage with the violence of colonialism itself, and the outcomes of the long-term conflicts it generated for contemporary global crises. The major histories of the isles instead treat the presence of South Asians, for example, as Commonwealth movement of peoples providing labour for mid-century regeneration – sojourners forging ethnic enclaves in the hearts of Britain's industrial centres. The voices of these ‘ethnic minorities’ are mediated by majorities and by the state.

This marginalisation of alternative public historical narratives for Britain has had its impact on the perception of those regions transformed by Commonwealth migration from the middle of the 20th century and, in particular, the large industrial cities of the Midlands and the North. Perpetuating the myth of ‘grim up north’, relative under-investment, an erosion of cultural institutions in favour of the South East, has been part of this trend. This process has also created the idea of Bradford as a ‘failed’ multicultural experiment, and contributed to the branding of Rotherham as a problem city. For the Yorkshire and Humber region, Leeds, Sheffield, Rotherham and Bradford make up around 36% of the region's total population. These four cities have disproportionately large South Asian populations – nearly 70% for the region. In this sense, the contemporary demographic history of the UK's large northern cities is marked by postcolonial migration alongside industrial decline.