The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 was an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

. The Act entailed stringent restrictions on the entry of Commonwealth citizens into the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Only those with work permits (which were typically only for high-skilled workers, such as doctors) were permitted entry.

Background

Before the Act was passed, citizens of

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

countries had extensive rights to migrate to the UK. For instance, in the sparsely populated frontier area of

San Tin San Tin () is a loosely defined area in Yuen Long District in New Territories, Hong Kong that is part of the San Tin constituency. Unlike Hong Kong's highly urbanised areas, San Tin is sparsely populated due to its marshlands. San Tin is l ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, 85–90 percent of the able-bodied males left for the United Kingdom between 1955 and 1962 to work in British factories, foundries, railways, buses, hotels, and restaurants. There was widespread opposition to mass migration in Britain from a variety of political groups, including the

Conservative Monday Club The Conservative Monday Club (usually known as the Monday Club) is a British political pressure group, aligned with the Conservative Party, though no longer endorsed by it. It also has links to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unioni ...

, whose Members of Parliament were very active and vocal in their opposition thereto. In response to a perceived heavy influx of immigrants, the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

government tightened the regulations, permitting only those with government-issued employment vouchers, limited in number, to settle. The

leader of the opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

in Parliament at the time,

Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant ...

of the Labour Party, called the act "cruel and brutal anti-colour legislation".

The Act

The Act specified that all Commonwealth citizens, including citizens of the UK and Colonies (CUKCs), without a relevant connection to the UK were subject to immigration control. A person was exempt from immigration control if the person was a Commonwealth citizen born in the UK; a Commonwealth citizen holding a passport issued by the UK government in either the UK or Republic of Ireland; a CUKC holding a passport issued by the UK Government (not including colonial governments) anywhere; and their family members. Exemptions also applied to Commonwealth citizens who were ordinarily resident in the UK at any point from 1960 to 1962, as well as wives and children under 16 accompanying a family member resident in the UK. The Act went into effect on 1st July 1962. According to

Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black nationa ...

, a Trinidad-born Communist activist, the Act "established a second class citizenship status for West Indians and other Afro-Asian peoples in Britain." She predicted that if it passed, the Act "could be the death knell of the Commonwealth." Ambalavaner Sivanandan, an anti-racist activist, argued that the Act served to 'enshrine state racism in law', while Labour politician Barbara Castle labelled it 'a violation of the very idea of the Commonwealth.'

Aftermath

The Act cut 'racialised colony and Commonwealth entrants' from an estimated 136,400 in 1961 to 57,046 in 1963. The Act was amended by the

Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 (c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act The Act amended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, further reducing rights of citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations countries (as of ...

and was superseded by another new Act,

Immigration Act 1971 The Immigration Act 1971c 77 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning immigration and nearly entirely remaking the field of British immigration law. The Act, as with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, and that of 1968, res ...

, which came into force in 1971.

References

External links

Copy of the Act as originally passed
archive.org 1962 in law United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1962 Immigration law in the United Kingdom British Indian history 1962 in international relations Immigration legislation United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations {{UK-statute-stub