The Modern Commonwealth

Much literature compares the current rise of right-wing politics in Britain with that of the 1970s (e.g. Ford and Goodwin 2010; Husbands 1994), but ignores the lead-up that occurred in the 1960s, which has important parallels with the EU situation today. This is because today's ‘limited discretionary control’ over EU immigration (Ford and Goodwin 2010: 20) was arguably a crucial driver of the events of the 1960s, also influencing attitudes in the 1970s towards those who had arrived in earlier decades. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, at the formation of the Modern Commonwealth, Britain was trying to rebuild after the Second World War, and to replace its depleted workforce. The insufficient acknowledgement of local discontent at actual and potential immigration came to a head in the 1960s, with the passage of the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (for a fuller discussion of the development of law in this area see, for example, Clayton 2006; Dale 1983).

In the 1960s, independence movements in Eastern and Central Africa were relocating ‘nationhood’ and ‘belonging’ ethnically, as ‘Africanised’. For example, the 1963 Kenyan constitution made citizenship require a person to have a parent born in Kenya, and allowed discrimination even against citizens who did not ‘belong’.1 This echoed a distinction made in British Empire territories, mainly in the West Indies, between those who ‘belonged’ to a particular territory (by birth, ancestry, naturalisation or office) and other imperial subjects, and would be reflected in the UK's ‘patrial’ definition, introduced in 1971 (Clayton 2006: 313; Plender 1971: 305, 313).

The presence in East African countries, and elsewhere, of persons with heritage from the region of India/Pakistan, descended from those relocated there during the period of the British Empire, complicated these ethnicised notions of citizenship and belonging, since those individuals were largely East African by experience and residence, British by passport and subjecthood, and Indian or Pakistani by ancestry. These so-called ‘East African Asian’ populations fell victim to restrictions on trade, professions and property, and emigrated steadily (Dummett and Nicol 1990; Shah 2000). In the late 1960s, this emigration suddenly increased and, in the first two months of 1968, 12,800 persons from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania entered the UK, compared to 6,150 for the whole of 1965 (Lester 2003: 4). This was driven both by worsening conditions in East Africa, and by fears that Britain would restrict entry (e.g. Shah 2000: 80)—fears that would be soon realised.

In 1968, over the course of three days, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed. This was part of a series of legislation which increasingly complicated and restricted immigration rights to the islands of the UK. The 1968 Act introduced the idea that—irrespective of an immigrant's citizenship status—if neither the person nor her or his parent or grandparent were born, naturalised, adopted or registered as a citizen, on the islands of the UK itself, s/he could be denied entry. Supported by Conservative ministers like Enoch Powell, who criticised the Wilson government for insufficient engagement with local concerns about immigration, the Act was also supported by the Labour Home Secretary, Jim Callaghan, and all but two of the Labour cabinet. Indeed, in a memorandum preceding the crucial meeting (quoted in Lester 2003), Callaghan crucially uses the word ‘belonging’ in the sense described here.

Just after the 1968 Act passed, Powell delivered his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech expressing explicitly his racialised fears of the consequences of increased immigration, and was ejected from the Conservative Party (Telegraph 2007). However, he and others had already helped through an act that would deprive British subjects of core rights and had brought into focus either the racial core of discontent at Commonwealth immigration to Britain or, more likely, the racist sentiment that had been mobilised by a lack of successful engagement in mainstream public debate on the issue.

Three themes arise in relation to this Act and to the context of its implementation more generally. First, it suddenly rendered many persons effectively stateless. This included those already in transit from East Africa towards their country of citizenship, the UK. Second, it suddenly and abruptly altered complex migration dynamics that had developed (Clayton 2006: 11). For example, Pakistani workers had, for some time, been engaged in circular migration, spending some time working in factories in Britain, benefiting from the higher wages available, and then returning to Pakistan to set up families (Shaw 2000: 10). Those in Britain, ready to return, suddenly discovered that they or their successors may be unable to re-enter in the future (Shaw 2000: 30; Spencer 1997: 4). Similar circular and return migration patterns have developed in the EU (Elrick 2008: 1506; Wallace 2002: 604–6).

A final theme is that of the political discourses which developed at the time and which are reflected in today's political landscape. For Mazrui, writing in 1971, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 was an attempt to contain growing racism in the British population (1971: 27). Further, he argues that regionalism and racism formed major challenges for the Commonwealth more generally—for example, motivating British EEC membership which would take effect in 1973 (1971: 7, 23).

Mazrui describes the EEC as representing a white grouping in contrast to the racially diverse Commonwealth. However, focusing on the racial aspect of this misses other aspects—crucially, Britain's understanding of its role in these two organisations. For example, Britain was losing its position as ‘first among equals’ in the Commonwealth, as an increasing number of Black-ruled African states were becoming members and challenging Britain's position with regard to the remaining white-ruled states in that region. In the EEC, however, Britain could potentially take a role as a major player. Perhaps, then, this is more easily seen as primarily about power politics, where race was both secondary and in fact adopted as a post-decision popular explanation.

The National Front (NF) was formed in 1967, largely by Conservatives who felt that a more right-wing approach would have won the 1965 general election. It grew in stature, but came to be seen as militant. In 1982, the modern British National Party (BNP) was founded out of divisions in the NF (e.g. Ford and Goodwin 2010). Emerging from periods of changing migration conditions left unaddressed by mainstream politics, these organisations represent a mainstreaming of extremist parties and positions. However, as can be seen by the passage of the 1968 Act, this period also featured the movement of extreme viewpoints into mainstream politics (see also Husbands 1994: 565).

The European Union

Commonwealth and European Union migration to the UK are not mutually exclusive. Migration from Eastern Europe to the UK arguably began in earnest with the 1946 postwar managed-migration scheme, which stopped as the UK Caribbean population grew (McDowell 2009: 21). Meanwhile, despite the increasing relevance of Europe, post-1990 migration to the UK has been largely of Commonwealth migrants moving to join already-established communities (see Figure 1). EU migrants are, however, gaining an increasing presence, particularly since the accession of the Eastern European member-states in 2004 (A8) and 2007 (A2).2

European Union and Commonwealth Free Movement: A Historical-Comparative Perspective

All authors

Tendayi Bloom & Katherine Tonkiss

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.778022

Published online:

21 June 2013

Figure 1.  Comparing immigration to the UK from Commonwealth and from EU countries, 1991–2010.

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Figure 1 compares immigration to the UK of both Commonwealth and EU citizens (ONS 2011: Table 2.03). It makes the distinction between both different EU groups (EU 15 and A8) and different Commonwealth groups (‘Old Commonwealth’ and ‘New Commonwealth’) because the rates of immigration of these groups have been quite different over this time period, as has the ethnic differentiation.

While Commonwealth immigration in the period under discussion was characterised by depleting mobility rights for Commonwealth citizens, the recent experience in the EU context has been characterised by a growth in the recognition of more substantial rights for EU citizens. Initially, freedom of movement in the EU stemmed from a commitment to non-discrimination in labour rights for qualified coal and steel workers to gain employment in alternative member-states of the Economic Coal and Steel Community. This has gradually been extended, through a series of reforms, into the granting of formal European citizenship to citizens of member-states. Provisions were made for more extensive social rights for migrant workers regarding education, housing and non-workers’ rights (Baldoni 2003: 4–9). European citizenship was formally created in 1992, further extending European immigrants’ rights into areas of voting and access to domestic social security benefits (Cabrera 2010: 182–4). The right to free movement is set out in Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (European Union 2010), the commitments of which reflect those set out in the original Treaty of Rome 1957. The provisions of European citizenship are set out in Part 2, the commitments of which were agreed as part of the Maastricht Treaty 1992, in which the Schengen Agreement of 1990 (allowing for the removal of many of the EU's border controls) was also formally integrated (European Union 2010).

Despite the apparent equalisation of status for EU citizens in terms of migration, there remain significant challenges surrounding the implementation of EU citizenship and the free movement regime. These problems stem particularly from the relationship between emerging trans-state citizenship and persistent national forms of citizenship. National identities are strong and prevalent in Europe and some studies suggest that they may even be gaining further support as the integration project continues (Auer 2010; Citrin and Sides 2004). Indeed, evidence shows that support for nationalist and anti-EU parties, such as the BNP and UKIP in the UK, has grown particularly in European elections (see Figure 2). In addition to these political expressions, incidents signalling hostility towards European citizens residing in the UK have also been reported—for example, in rural communities like those in the county of Herefordshire, where large numbers of EU migrants have arrived for employment mainly within the agricultural and hospitality sectors (Dawney 2007; Tonkiss 2011), as well as widespread hostility towards the European Traveller populations (Chakraborti 2010).3

European Union and Commonwealth Free Movement: A Historical-Comparative Perspective

All authors

Tendayi Bloom & Katherine Tonkiss

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.778022

Published online:

21 June 2013

Figure 2.  Electoral success for far-right parties (NF and BNP) in Britain, 1970–2010.

Source: 1970–2001 data are drawn from Parliamentary notes (Yonwin 2004: 7); 2005 and 2010 data drawn from raw data (Electoral Commission 2010).

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Such anti-migrant hostilities have become more visible since the accession of the A8 and A2 member-states in 2004 and 2007 respectively. Indeed, in May 2004, the EU population increased by 28 per cent to 500 million (McDowell 2009: 19). As can be seen in Figure 1, following the accession of these new member-states, the migration of EU citizens into the UK almost doubled to 130,000 in 2004, and peaked at 190,000 in 2008, before dropping back to 167,000 in 2009. Whilst it is worth noting that many of these persons return to their country of national citizenship, or go to another member-state without settling in the UK (Elrick 2008: 1506; Pollard et al. 2008: 17–21; Wallace 2002: 604–6), these figures nonetheless represent a significant increase on the 50,000 accession-state nationals who were estimated to be living in the UK in 2003 (Pollard et al. 2008: 16).

The UK, driven largely by labour market shortages, gave more immediate, fuller employment rights to A8 nationals than other Western European countries (Demireva 2011: 639; McDowell 2009: 20). Indeed, the UK was one of only three countries (with Ireland and Sweden) to impose no restrictions on the migration of A8 nationals and only small restrictions on subsequent migration from the A2 states. A2 nationals had to obtain an accession worker card from the UK before migrating, unless they were highly skilled, students or self-sufficient individuals (Migration Advisory Committee 2008: 49). Migrants filled gaps in the agricultural sector which, studies suggest, has placed particular strain on rural communities, changing the nature of public service provision in such areas and affecting the ‘indigenous community’ (Commission for Rural Communities 2007: 7). However, while this benefited the UK economy, it caused some difficulties on a local level, the nature of which is discussed below.

Ethnicity

The use of ethnicity is central to the problematisation of the immigration contexts of migration explored here. We argue that it is key in the reproduction of divisions between who may and who may not belong, and who may thus claim access to rights. Under such circumstances, individuals with concerns about the impact of migration on their local area or national context may use ethnicity to define the problem and locate blame. This is seen in both the EU and Commonwealth contexts, though in different ways.

In the Commonwealth context, emphasis was placed on the responsibility of the immigrant to integrate or to assimilate into the local community. Powell summed up this sentiment, commenting that ‘to be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members’ (Telegraph 2007). Thus blame for the problems and challenges often associated with immigration came to be framed in terms of ethnic similarity and difference, though the perception of threat may really be driven by unaddressed underlying economic and other concerns. We argue, then, that, if fears of local labour-market saturation or local public-service provision were openly debated, this might avoid their ‘ethnicisation’, with its focus upon assimilation failures.

Contemporary research with nationalist group members commonly finds them citing Eastern European migrants as being culturally distinct from the ‘indigenous’ British population and reporting this as a reason to suppose that such migrants present a threat to the cultural distinctiveness of the UK and local communities (Tonkiss 2011). However, when asked for their views on Turkish accession, Turkey becomes the perceived ‘other’, while Eastern Europeans became included in a different layer of the collective European ‘we’ (Tonkiss 2011; layers of created difference from the perspective of the migrants is also found in McDowell 2009: 30). Understanding the construction of ethnic difference and its relevance for immigration policies must be part of the examination of local concerns expressed about immigration.

Language as an Ethnic Demarcator

Language skills are important in terms of migrants’ access to rights and services, and local authorities rightfully emphasise the importance of educational provision in this area for these reasons (Cook et al. 2011: 66–8). However, concerns surrounding language are often framed in terms of blaming migrants for their language difficulties. Exploring the attitudes of nationalist group members in England to European free movement demonstrates how this is constructed. During interviews7 conducted by Tonkiss in 2010–11 as part of a wider study of perceptions of EU migration to the UK, one respondent (a member of the BNP in Herefordshire) offered the following comment:

It is interesting to observe here both how the previous outsiders have become insiders, and how this process is being retrospectively framed in terms of current rhetoric. The immigrants from the West Indies almost all spoke English to begin with and, although they experienced discrimination on account of their accents, racialised ethnicity was a significant factor (Channer 1995). This suggests that language may be merely the latest reasoning given in a more timeless phenomenon of the construction of difference. That is, it is one rationale currently given for perceived problems with migration.

Coupled with many of the often unchallenged assumptions about migrants, this language difficulty among EU migrants is seen as particularly problematic. Indeed, one interviewee commented, ‘But most of them who don't want to learn English, they know one word—“benefits”’ (author interview with local community member, Herefordshire, July 2010). It is this assumption of migrants’ unwillingness to cooperate and contribute that drives the framing of integration in terms of blame of the perceived outsider. Thus, while some researchers in rural areas suggest that white incomers ‘may assume some level of insider status because of their shared ethnicity’ (Chakraborti 2010: 505), EU migrants in fact find themselves perceived as outsiders on different grounds. Participants felt that xenophobia against other white groups was not racist, perceiving there to be, nonetheless, ‘undesirable’ forms of whiteness (Chakraborti 2010: 512), suggesting this may be even harder to challenge.

As we have already noted, local racism in the 1960s was frowned upon by mainstream politics but, unchallenged, contributed to the failure to address local immigration concerns. It then became the dominant way to frame immigration discussions. Paralleling this, in the contemporary context, popular racism against Commonwealth immigrants is not socially acceptable, except in extreme circles. However, racism against EU migrants—on the basis of their level of integration or language ability—is socially acceptable, though frowned upon in mainstream politics. This is changing, however. Gordon Brown's accusations in 2010 of bigotry against a local party member expressing concern at EU immigration will be discussed in due course, but it is worth noting here David Cameron's 2011 comment:8

What is crucial here is that Cameron's response to difficulties in the local context is to reduce migration, rather than to recognise that there are also systemic problems of disadvantage and inequality creating and re-creating the context into which the migration is occurring.

Analysing Social Class and Competing Micro and Macro Concerns

Economic concerns arising from immigration are common in public discourse. The view that migrants place a potential strain on available jobs and goods, as well as the idea that migrants’ use of benefits and public services is burdensome, is frequently heard in informal conversation and the tabloid media (Dolan 2009; Groves 2011; Harvey 2008) and is mirrored in the rhetoric of nationalist and mainstream politicians alike (for example, see David Cameron's recent speech—Guardian 2011; and the manifesto of the British National Party 2010: 16–19).

In blindly positing economic threat as a reason to limit migration, such individuals are asserting a belief that their co-citizens (or, more accurately, co-nationals) should have primary access to such goods ahead of others—essentially, that shared nationality represents an ‘ethical community’ (Gibney 1999: 175; Miller 2000: 27). This seems to suggest that a concern for economic threat may itself be symptomatic of underlying fears of cultural threat, which is also fed by economic concerns. Migration can seem to reduce cohesiveness of the in-group, firstly by diluting a perceived homogeneity in dimensions seen as important (race, ethnicity, language), and secondly through including individuals specifically defined as members of a group classed negatively as different (e.g. the Arab other).

Although racism forms a barrier to the realisation of equal rights (e.g. Koopmans 2010: 4), it is often mediated, in Britain, through social class (McDowell 2009: 29). This is no less the case in the contexts under discussion here. In 1950, sociologist Thomas Marshall declared that equal citizenship status could be undermined by inequalities of the social class system (Marshall 1992 [1950: 2]; discussed in relation to migration in Bloom and Feldman 2011: 43). Marshall notes how class divisions within society, denying some persons full political or social rights, thereby also remove civil rights and undermine the concept of equal citizenship. Migrants moving into this context may arrive without ‘that deep sense of class difference which still defines this country so strongly’ (Alibhai-Brown 2000: 27). They must also negotiate the class system.

Some theorists argue that ‘It is not exclusion from citizenship per se which results in … [negative conditions for immigrants], but unequal social and economic spaces’ (Bloom and Feldman 2011: 45). Discrimination in housing and the labour market, or as a result of poor language skills, effectively acts as Marshallian social-class stratification. Acknowledging that immigrants participate in the social-class system helps not only to understand their disadvantage, and the structural barriers they may experience, but also to recognise their social mobility, and the reactions this may cause in local populations who must themselves negotiate the class system. It can also help to explain former immigrants’ reactions to new waves of immigrants, once they are themselves positioned.

Frustration at immobility between social classes has an impact upon local reactions to the immigrant presence (observed by several commentators, e.g. Mann and Fenton 2009: 529). Indeed, studies have found that antipathy to immigrants is felt the most strongly among non-mobile skilled working classes who feel unrepresented and alienated by mainstream politics (Ford and Goodwin 2010: 12, Table 5; Lowles and Painter 2011). Xenophobic parties seem to be successful in communities that have long been ignored, for example, among ‘white skilled working-class voters who feel politicians live on a different planet’ (Hazel Blears, former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, quoted in Ford and Goodwin 2010: 1). This represents a core contingent of the BNP membership today, and was observed to form the bulk of NF members in the early 1970s (Ford and Goodwin 2010: 9, Table 2; Hanna 1974: 51). Class-based immobility seems to translate to a wider frustration at an inability to control or narrate external environments (Mann and Fenton 2009: 530). Housing and welfare policies can be seen to advantage new migrants at the expense of white working-class Britons (Lowles and Painter 2011; Mann and Fenton 2009: 531). This concern needs to be engaged with to avoid reinforcing the accompanying frustration and alienation. The upward mobility of locals, meanwhile, seems to lead to indifference towards migration (Lowles and Painter 2011).

Class is a central concern in the rhetoric surrounding the problems associated with heightened immigration and mainstream politics’ failure to engage with it. Consider education. Currently, the BNP explicitly link their education policy to problems wrought by immigration, putting a stop to what they call ‘the scandalous and racist neglect that has left working-class white boys at the bottom of the table for academic achievement’.9 Similarly, in 1963 the parents of white children at a state school in Southall removed their children from school, expressing fears that the large proportion of immigrant children in the school had led to a lowering of standards and to a lack of conveying of English cultural values. The then Minister for Education warned:

This echoes the fear found in a National Front article from the 1970s ‘that suggested that British children were in danger of losing cultural birthright due to curriculum changes’ (Hanna 1974: 50), and is representative of the concerning relationship we have observed between mainstream and extreme politics.

Social class, then, is crucial to the debate between the local and the national contexts and concerns. This played out recently. In 1998 (and elsewhere), Gordon Brown has argued that:

Such a vision can seem divorced from the real concerns of ordinary voters. In 2010, as Prime Minister, Brown met one such Labour voter, Mrs Duffy, who explained that she worked with vulnerable people in her local area, and expressed concern that those people would find it difficult to access local services because of what she saw as a high level of EU immigration to her local area. Once he believed he was out of earshot, Brown referred to Duffy as a ‘bigot’ on the basis of these comments.10 This comment seems to locate him in a class apart from these trivial local concerns, failing to acknowledge that, given his social class, he is unlikely to experience the local issues involved.

This is symbolic of our concern. The freer-movement ideals supported by Brown need to engage with the local-level experiences in order to avoid, at best, impotence, and at worst, destructiveness. Researchers have found two key factors in BNP supporters: they are both very worried about immigration and hostile or alienated from political establishment (e.g. Ford and Goodwin 2010; Mann and Fenton 2009). As long as mainstream politics fails to engage with local concerns, both of these can become inflamed.

Implications for Freer Movement Theorising More Generally

The national, macro-level theoretical position often avoids engagement with these micro-level challenges of migration, and celebrated free-movement theorists falter when acknowledging it (e.g. Carens 1987, 2000). When policy then apparently takes on a less-restrictive stance without engaging with micro-level concerns, a disconnect develops between individual views and those of policy-makers.

There have been numerous attempts to understand how ideal conclusions in favour of free movement should be modified in the light of real-world constraints (e.g. see Bauböck 1994; Carens 1996; Gibney 1999); however, there are few opportunities to study genuine free-movement regimes and the implications of modifying them. Joseph Carens has emphasised the difficulties inherent in trying to apply conclusions of ideal theorising to the real world (Carens 1996). However, beyond noting that a realistic approach must take into account sovereign and independent states, behavioural realities and political realities (Carens 1996: 158), he does not discuss crucial internal changes that may need to be made to change these realities. We have highlighted issues of class and inequality, as well as the use of inflammatory rhetoric, which fill the gap left when these issues are not addressed.

We agree with Matthew Gibney that ‘a convincing ethical ideal must strive to balance the competing claims of citizens and refugees’ (1999: 169, developed in Gibney 2004); however, we argue that this reaches wider than just to the admission of refugees. That is, it is necessary to recognise the special circumstances arising from the admission of persons with already equal or similar citizenship rights to those of the native population. This then moves beyond the justifications for entry, since entry is already legally assured, and must focus on the development of optimum reception conditions in order to minimise the problems we have discussed. This relies on an honest appraisal of the existing structures of disadvantage and inequality in the host state.

Carens himself notes that ‘What we assume about what is possible can have a tremendous effect upon the questions we ask and the conclusions we reach’ (Carens 1996: 169). In this paper, we argue that the root conditions into which migration takes place are not themselves fixed, so that it is necessary to question what Carens takes to be the real-world circumstances. Meanwhile, it is necessary to also study particular free-movement regimes to understand how they affect the reception of immigrants and how they can be changed.