Immigration Control and Racially Motivated Violence: 1900 to the early 1960s

Abstract

The focus of this chapter will be on the manifestation of racially motivated hate crime from the start of the twentieth century until the early 1960s. The chapter examines the continuing political activity of Africans and Indians within Britain at the commencement of this period and highlights continuing hostility and discrimination faced by immigrants on British soil and within British vessels. The chapter discusses far-right political efforts to limit Jewish immigration and legislative action taken by the state to achieve immigration and access control alongside residency and citizenship restrictions for ‘undesirable’ migrants. The chapter then addresses the changing fortune of Black and Asian migrants with the onset of war and explores Britain’s history of social and political disorder during this period that prompted the passing of the 1936 Public Order Act. The chapter considers the political action and rising political consciousness of Britain’s black and Asian communities and their readiness to embrace liberal values to pursue equality, democracy, and human rights for all. Against this background, the chapter discusses the creation of the current liberal framework of international order and the gradual embedding of liberal values and human rights. The migration of persons from the New Commonwealth after 1948 witnessed further anti-black rioting and subsequent political action to secure black rights and to improve race relations. A tension was consequently evident between action to counter discrimination and measures to achieve immigration control. The final section of the chapter addresses the penetration of these themes within an evolving politics of hate, where immigration control served as an aspect of political campaigning, labour union agitation, state legislation, and far-right extremism.