This country has never fully welcomed foreigners and most of our immigration legislation is racist in effect and intention. The Aliens Act of 1905 was intended to stop European Jews coming here and wasn't significantly modified during WW2. The real scandal of Kindertransport is in the name. We begrudgingly took 10,000 children but we wouldn't take their parents, most of whom perished under the Nazis.
After WW2, citizens of the British Empire had an automatic right to come to the 'mother country', but when those with black or brown faces started to do so in any numbers, successive Immigration Acts were brought in to reduce the flow, while continuing to allow predominently white immigration from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the rest. Our 'hostile environment' isn't anything new and has its history and its roots in colonialism and the innate racism and xenophobia that went with it. I think we often oversell our 'tolerance' as a nation when there's not that much evidence to support it. |