United Kingdom

The United Kingdom became a country of immigration after the Second World War, following large-scale immigration from its former colonies. Labour shortages generated by Britain’s relative postwar affluence were filled by colonial workers who took advantage of privileged immigration channels created by the country’s citizenship laws. Until the mid-1960s, migration was a market-driven phenomenon sanctioned by an imperial citizenship regime. Migration patterns were largely stable from the early 1970s until the 1990s, with migration disproportionately made up of family reunification.

Peak periods of immigration in the postwar period have reliably occasioned public hostility, press hysteria, and party politicisation of the issue, with polls continuing to place immigration at the top of Britons’ concerns. Migrants are viewed as a problem for reasons being cited already for decades by opponents of immigration: immigrants are competitors for scarce jobs, housing, and social services, and they threaten to alter communities’ character against the will of their inhabitants. To these familiar complaints, critics of immigration have added two fresh concerns: first, that immigration undermines social solidarity and thus the welfare state; and, second, that older generations of immigrants and, above all, their children are failing to identify sufficiently with Britain and British values. At the same time, the United Kingdom has Europe’s most elaborate legislative and policy framework combatting racial discrimination; moreover, the government, public bodies, and the media take formal and informal measures to ensure visible representation of minorities.

Events since the mid-1990s have undermined confidence both in the ability of the country to integrate visible minorities and in the efficacy of multicultural policies in doing so. In 2001, gangs of Asian and White youth fought in England’s northern cities; in July 2005, four suicide bombers who were British Muslims attacked London and four others tried; and, in October 2005, riots broke out between members of Birmingham’s Black and Asian communities. These visible, mediatised events occurred against a backdrop of continuing socio-economic deprivation among some sections of the UK’s visible minority population, leading high-profile figures to question multiculturalism.

Starting in the mid-1990s, transformations linked in part to policy change have occurred. Applications for asylum under the 1951 UN convention skyrocketed in the late 1990s, increasing from an average of 35,000 per year from 1991 to 1998, and peaking at 100,000 in 2002. Restrictive measures have contributed to a sharp, steady decline since 2002, with only 26,000 asylum applications made in 2005. The reduction in applications of 24% from 2004 to 2005 is more than double the 11% average reduction across EU25 countries. Skilled migration began increasing, and by 2002 the UK was issuing record numbers of work permits - some 130,000 were issued each year from 2002 to 2005. And, since 2004, a dramatic and unprecedented increase in immigration has followed from the granting of labour market rights to A8 (2004 EU accession countries minus Malta and Cyprus) nationals.

Today, the United Kingdom is receiving more immigrants than at any point in its history. These new arrivals come at a time when the UK has not fully coped with the challenges thrown up by earlier waves in postwar migration. The rest of this profile reviews that history, examines the UK’s integration philosophy and practice, and considers how the country is coping with the challenge of new European migration, as well as related challenges of irregular migration and ethnicity-based inequality.