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    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Immigrants and Minorities on 03 November 2016, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02619288.2016.1241712.

    Accepted author manuscript, 513 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Community Versus Commonwealth: Reappraising the 1971 Immigration Act

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>3/11/2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Immigrants and Minorities
Issue number1
Volume35
Number of pages20
Pages (from-to)1-20
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The 1971 Immigration Act constitutes the most important piece of legislation for the regulation of immigration to Britain. Many assume that the Act was simply a further extension of the restrictive measures established over the post-war period to end non-white immigration. Based on original archival material, I argue that the Act was established in reaction to the dilemma the government faced as a result of joining the European Economic Community and the free movement of workers against Commonwealth migrants. The Act represents the final dismantling of universal Commonwealth citizenship and, in this sense, a definitive acceptance of the end of the Empire.