Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:18:13.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Impacts of Post-WWII Migration to Britain: Policy Constraints, Political Opportunism and the Alteration of Representational Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Anthony M. Messina
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The article identifies and analyzes the most important consequences of non-white post-World War Two immigration for contemporary British politics. The central argument is that postwar immigration has gradually altered the course of British politics along three major dimensions. First, the demographic pattern of postwar immigration during its earliest phase or “first wave” severely and indefinitely constrained the ability of British policymakers to utilize foreign labor to rectify periodic manpower shortages and other structural impediments to economic growth. Second, the permanent settlement of a significant number of non-white immigrants facilitated the success of a political project that redefined the role of the British state in the economy and society. And finally, postwar immigration and its social aftermath altered the representational foundations of Britain's political party system by engendering greater ideological competition between political parties and creating policy distance between them with regard to issues that are especially pertinent to Britain's growing ethnic minority population.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , Spring 2001 , pp. 259 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Serious efforts to curb labor migration began as early as 1962Google Scholar. On this point see ton-Henry, Zig Lay, The Politics of Race in Britain (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984), pp. 38–43Google Scholar.

2. For a brief discussion of this general point see Castles, Stephen and Miller, Mark J., The Age of Migration (New York: Guilford Press, 1993), p. 76Google Scholar.

3. Eatwell, Roger, “Why Has the Extreme Right Failed in Britain?” in The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA, ed. Hainsworth, Paul (London: Pinter Publishers, 1992)Google Scholar.

4. See Layton-Henry, , Politics of Race, p. 106Google Scholar.

5. During the 1990s the number of persons seeking asylum in Britain significantly expanded and, in conjunction with this influx, so too did the number of “over stayers” and other irregular and illegal persons. See Organization for Cooperation and Development, Trends in International Migration, Annual Report 1999 (Paris: OECD, 1999), p. 216Google Scholar.

6. Layton-Henry, Zig, “Britain: The Would-be Zero Immigration Country,” in Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, ed. Cornelius, Wayne A., Martin, Philip L., and Hollifield, James F. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

7. Hollifield, James F., Immigrants, Markets, and States: The Political Economy of Postwar Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 93.Google Scholar

8. Paul, Kathleen, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

9. Ibid., p. 93

10. The dispute revolves around the issue of how much the British government was concerned about the unanticipated arrival of non-white workers during the late 1950s. The emerging dominant viewpoint is that, from its outset, the government was far more alarmed about non-white immigration than many scholars had previously assumed.

11. Layton-Henry, , Politics of Race, p. 23Google Scholar.

12. Butler, David and Sloman, Anne, British Political Facts 1900–79 (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 300Google Scholar.

13. Castles, Stephen and Kosack, Godula, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 31Google Scholar.

14. See Butler, and Sloman, , British Political Facts, pp. 298–300Google Scholar.

15. The Economist, 4 11 1961 and 7 08 1965Google Scholar; and Money, Jeannette, Fences and Neighbors: The Political Geography of Immigration Control (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 66Google Scholar.

16. The decision to curb labor migration to Britain occurred eight years earlier than a similar decision in Sweden and twelve years earlier than in France, for example.

17. Jones, K. and Smith, A. D., The Economic Impact of Commonwealth Immigration (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Freeman, Gary P., “Britain, the Deviant Case,” in Cornelius, Controlling Immigration, p. 298Google Scholar; and Rose, E. J. B. and Associates, Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 639–55Google Scholar.

18. Castles, Stephen and Kosack, Godula, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 425Google Scholar.

19. Advancing the traditional view on this score, for example, are Hansen, Randall, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 120Google Scholar; Joppke, Christian, Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany and Great Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Studlar, Donley. T., “Elite Responsiveness or Elite Autonomy: British Immigration Policy Reconsidered,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 3 (1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Layton-Henry, ZigThe Politics of Immigration (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 73–74Google Scholar. A somewhat more nuanced, but not incompatible, perspective has recently been advanced by Money, Fences and Neighbors, who puts the contestation of postwar British immigration policy in a spatial context.

20. The best example of this revisionist viewpoint is Paul, Whitewashing Britain.

21. Freeman, Gary P., Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 184Google Scholar.

22. With regard to the recent shortages of skilled labor in the United Kingdom see BBC News, “Migrants ‘benefit UK Economy’” 21 07 2000Google Scholar. With regard to the German case see Martin, Philip, “German Green Cards” (unpublished paper, 2000)Google Scholar.

23. Saggar, Shamit, “Immigration and Economics: The Politics of Race and Immigration in the Postwar Period,” in The Road from 1945, ed. Fawcett, H. and Lowe, R. (London: Macmillan, 1996)Google Scholar.

24. See Messina, Anthony M., Race and Party Competition in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 21–52Google Scholar.

25. Pierson, Paul, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pierson, Paul, “The Path to European Integration: An Historical Institutionalist Account,” Comparative Political Studies 29 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. See, for example, BBC News, “Wanted: Somebody…Anybody?” 11 09 2000Google Scholar; The Economist, 26 09 1998Google Scholar; and Organization for Cooperation and Development, Trends, p. 216Google Scholar.

27. Saggar, “Immigration and Economics.”

28. On this point see Messina, Anthony M., “Political Impediments to the Resumption of Labour Migration to Western Europe,” West European Politics 13 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Ibid.

30. Layton-Henry, , Politics of Immigration, pp. 22–36Google Scholar.

31. Some policy change could, of course, be introduced at the margins, however.

32. Paul, , Whitewashing Britain, p. 162Google Scholar.

33. A 1997 British Election Study survey cited in Shamit Saggar, , Race and Representation: Electoral Politics and Ethnic Pluralism in Britain (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, forthcoming), chapter 6Google Scholar.

34. See, for example, the conspicuous absence of this question in Gallup, George. H., ed. The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937–1975, 2 vols. (New York: Random House, 1976)Google Scholar.

35. On this point see Ibid., pp. 614 and 949.

36. On these points see European Commission, Eurobaronteter 48 (1997): 70Google Scholar; and Organization for Co-operation and Development, Trends, p. 263Google Scholar.

37. See Craig, F. W. S., British General Election Manifestos 1900–1974 (London: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 239–477CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the series, The Times Guide to the House of Commons (London: Times Books, 1979–1992)Google Scholar

38. Fitzgerald, Marian, Political Parties and Black People (London: Runnymede Trust, 1984), p. 21Google Scholar.

39. Ethnic Minorities and the 1983 General Election (London: Commission for Racial Equality, 1984), p. 23Google Scholar.

40. Whiteley, Paul et al, True Blues: The Politics of Conservative Party Membership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 252–67Google Scholar.

41. See Seyd, Patrick and Whiteley, Paul, Labour's Grass Roots: The Politics of Party Membership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 121–25Google Scholar.

42. Layton-Henry, “Britain: The Would-be Zero Immigration Country.”

43. On this point see Katznelson, Ira, Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States, 1900–30, and Britain, 1948–68(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 126–29Google Scholar.

44. See, for example, Kreiger, Joel, Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Decline (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

45. Hall, Peter, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 283Google Scholar.

46. Ibid., p. 136

47. Freeman, Gary P., “Migration and the Political Economy of the Welfare State,” The Annals 485 (05 1986): 61Google Scholar.

48. Ibid., p. 62.

49. Layton-Henry, , Politics of Immigration, pp. 67–68Google Scholar.

50. On this point see Pierson, , Dismantling the Welfare State?, p. 8Google Scholar

51. On this point see Layton-Henry, Zig, “Race and the Thatcher Government,” in Race, Government and Politics in Britain, ed. Layton-Henry, Zig and Rich, Paul B. (London: Sage, 1986), pp. 75–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. See, among many others, The Politics of Thatcherism, ed. Hall, Stuart and Jacques, Martin (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1983)Google Scholar.

53. Crewe, Ivor, “The Thatcher Legacy,” in Britain at the Polls 1992, ed. King, Anthony et al. (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1992), pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

54. Crewe, Ivor, –Why the Conservatives Won,” in Britain at the Polls, 1979: A Study of the General Election, ed. Penniman, Howard R. (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1981), pp. 284–85Google Scholar.

55. Speech of the Conservative Home Minister, Whitelaw, William, to the Bow Group, London (06 27,1980)Google Scholar.

56. Messina, , Race and Party Competition, pp. 46–48Google Scholar.

57. Ibid., pp. 12 and 47.

58. Home Office, Control of Immigration Statistics, UK, HMSO 1982–1997Google Scholar.

59. Ibid.

60. Crewe, Ivor, “How to Win a Landslide Without Really Trying: Why the Conservatives Won in 1983,” in Britain at the Polls, 1983: A Study of the General Election, ed. Ranney, Austin (Durham, NC: Duke University/American Enterprise Institute Press, 1985), p. 177Google Scholar.

61. On this point see Messina, , Race and Party Competition, pp. 39–46Google Scholar

62. For a discussion of these intra-party schisms see Ibid., pp. 21–34.

63. With respect to these divisions see Messina, Anthony M., “Ethnic Minorities and the British Party System in the 1990s and Beyond,” in Race and British Electoral Politics, ed. Saggar, Shamit (London: University College London Press, 1998), pp. 73–95Google Scholar; and The Economist, 23 12 2000, p. 88Google Scholar

64. Seyd, Patrick and Whiteley, PaulLabour's Grassroots: The Politics of Party Membership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 37Google Scholar.

65. Geddes, Andrew, “Asian and Afro-Caribbean Representation in Elected Local Government in England and Wales,” New Community 20 (1993): 43–57Google Scholar.

66. On this point see Shukra, Kalbir, “New Labour Debates and Dilemmas,” in Saggar, Race, pp. 117–44Google Scholar.

67. Messina, “Ethnic Minorities.”

68. On this point see Ibid.

69. In a 1997 survey, more than twice as many white Britons felt that the Labour Party rather than the Conservative Party “very closely” guarded the interests of ethnic minorities. Approximately two-thirds of ethnic minority voters saw the Labour Party as “looking after” their interests. Saggar, , Race and Representation, chap.7.Google Scholar.

70. On this point see DeClair, Edward, Politics on the Fringe: The People, Politics and Organization of the French National Front (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

71. Hansen, , Citizenship and Immigration, p. 244Google Scholar