Rising tensions

As the UK economy picked up and then boomed in the late 1950s and 1960s, migrants from India, East and West Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Cyprus and many other countries came to work in the textile factories of the North of England and the engineering factories of the Midlands. As a result, Britain’s cities became increasingly multicultural. However, as this was also a period of large-scale of Britons leaving to live elsewhere (such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the number of people leaving the country was higher than the number coming in.

The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which aimed to restrict numbers, set up a voucher system for those entering the UK to work. However, the law backfired. Many men who were working here at the time had intended to return to their families in the long-term, but when they realised that they may not be readmitted if they left the UK, they brought their families to join them and decided to settle permanently in the UK instead. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act restricted entry only to those with a father or grandfather born in the UK.

When Asian who had been expelled from East Africa arrived in the UK, they were met with hostility from sections of the press and protests organised by anti- groups. The most prominent of which was the , which wanted to ban all non-white immigration. They were, however, allowed entry.

Two speeches criticising levels of immigration by leading politicians - Enoch Powell in 1968 and Margaret Thatcher in 1978 - had the effect of polarising public opinion, with a rise in the numbers expressing anti-immigrant views.

“It almost passes belief that at this moment 20 or 30 additional immigrant children are arriving from overseas in Wolverhampton alone every week - and that means 15 or 20 additional families a decade or two hence. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”

— Enoch Powell, 20 April 1968, Conservative Association meeting

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture and, you know... people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in.

— Margaret Thatcher, 1978

A photograph of an anti-Asian demonstration in favour of Enoch Powell, circa 1972. — Image caption,
An anti-Asian demonstration in favour of Enoch Powell, circa 1972

During the same period, laws were passed to prevent racial discrimination and hate crimes and to promote better community relations.

Key facts:

	Race Relations Laws 1965-1998	What did it mean?
1965	Race Relations Act	Some kinds of racial discrimination were made illegal.
1968	Race Relations Act	Made discrimination illegal in employment and housing.
1976	Race Relations Act	Set up a Commission for Racial Equality to promote racial equality.
1998	Crime and Disorder Act	Made harsher punishments for hate crimes based on race or religion.

	1965
Race Relations Laws 1965-1998	Race Relations Act
What did it mean?	Some kinds of racial discrimination were made illegal.

	1968
Race Relations Laws 1965-1998	Race Relations Act
What did it mean?	Made discrimination illegal in employment and housing.

	1976
Race Relations Laws 1965-1998	Race Relations Act
What did it mean?	Set up a Commission for Racial Equality to promote racial equality.

	1998
Race Relations Laws 1965-1998	Crime and Disorder Act
What did it mean?	Made harsher punishments for hate crimes based on race or religion.

Responses, riots and protests

Reconstructing Britain after World War Two

Commonwealth immigrants in the Modern Era, 1948-present - OCR BRising tensions

Rising tensions

Key facts:

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