Why ending “new” immigration does not stop immigration

In the aftermath of Enoch Powell’s dismissal from the Tory shadow cabinet in 1968 and the huge popular reaction in support of Powell, Tory party leader Edward Heath announced in 1970 a policy of “no further large scale permanent immigration.” However, there was a catch, as Andrew Alexander writing in the Daily Mail explains. Under the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, British residents could bring in their families and “dependent relatives,” which, combined with a mass scale of international matchmaking that ensued between British residents and persons in South Asia, allowed large scale immigration to continue uninterrupted. “Since Heath’s promise to close the door, writers Alexander, “more than three million non-British immigrants have arrived in this country.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 12, 2007 04:55 PM | Send