Last year nearly 700,000 people from outside the EU applied to live in the UK. But not everyone will be welcomed. As our immigration system becomes a legal maze we’ll follow those desperate to make Britain their home. And the lawyers tasked with helping them. But amongst those who have and have not, will they be a burden or a benefit for our economy? Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? I, BBC 2019
The Entrepreneur Visa was launched to attract further investment from those looking to spend £200,000 to set up or invest in a UK business. ibid.
In the last five years legal aid has been cut by more than £1 billion. Most immigration cases are no longer covered. Apart from asylum. ibid.
In 2013 the estimated cost to the NHS of irregular migrants in England was £330 million. ibid.
To succeed they must navigate our controversial immigration system. Every decision the Home Office makes will have life-changing consequences. There are the men and women desperate to live in the UK. But who will get in? Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? II
‘The hostile environment is essentially making it as hard as possible for people to remain here when they shouldn’t be here.’ ibid. David Goodhart, Policy Exchange
27,044 people applied to the Home Office for asylum in 2018. 14,306 were granted. ibid. caption
‘It is an impenetrable jungle of judicial decisions.’ Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? III, legal bloke
There are more wives than husbands entering the UK for family unification. Women comprising 75% of migrants admitted as spouses of fiances in 2016. ibid. caption
Nearly 95,000 applications for settlement were made in the UK in 2018. 38% more than in 2017. Over 90,000 were successful. ibid.
In 2014 black British citizens legally settled in the UK since they were children were told by the government to prove they have the right to be here. They faced deportation back to countries they could barely remember. They lost jobs, homes, savings and much more. It became known as the Windrush Scandal and it shocked the nation. But another story went untold: the story of seventy years of political panic, bad faith and racial prejudice in the corridors of power. David Olusoga, The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files, BBC 2019
Sarah, Anthony and Judy are all victims of the so-called Hostile Environment, a crackdown on illegal immigration first introduced in 2014 … Now the authorities required proof of their right to be here and an extensive documentary record for the whole of their lives in the UK. ibid.
The Empire Windrush was a converted German troop ship commandeered after the war. ibid.
As it headed to Britian the Windrush became a serious embarrassment, and even in the words of prime minister Clement Attlee ‘an incursion’. ibid.
By its own estimate the government required an extra 1.3 million workers to help rebuild a country shattered by five years of war. ibid.
At its most extreme, it was government policy to give preference to men who had fought against Britain over men who were veterans of British forces and all because those veterans were black. ibid.
Churchill is reported to have said that immigration was the most important subject facing the country but complained that he couldn’t get his ministers to take any notice. ibid.
Many of the second wave of migrants travelled by air … The government machine now had the new arrivals firmly in its sights. ibid.
The children of the Windrush Generation who not for the last time would pay the highest price. ibid.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill had surprised cabinet colleagues by suggesting the Conservatives fight the next election on the slogan, Keep England White. ibid.
Since the 1971 Act successive British governments have passed more than a dozen nationality and immigration laws. ibid.
‘The seeds for what we take for granted – this multicultural society that we live in now – they were really formed on the dancefloor back in the day in the late ’60s and early ’70s.’ Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records, Sky Arts 2019
Chapter 1: The Trojan: Let’s go to Jamaica: one of the bigger islands … ‘Kingston was, was fun, ya know, much lovin’ in Jamaica. Then till them start migrating to England, here.’ ibid.
Between 1955 and 1963 over 100,000 people emigrated from Jamaica to Great Britain. ibid. caption
David Betteridge: Island & Trojan Records: ‘We were a Jamaican music company.’ ibid.
Millie: My Boy Lollipop … Dandy: Rudy, A Message to You … The Maytals: 54-46 Was My Number … Derek Morgan: Seven Letters … Desmond Decker and the Aces: 007 … The Harry J All Stars: Liquidator … Untouchables: Tighten Up … Lee Perry … ibid.
In 1968 the same year Trojan Records is founded, MP Enoch Powell reacts to rising levels of Immigration and addresses the nation. ibid.
A new vibration is emerging in Jamaica and Trojan begins importing records to sell to a growing market in the UK. ibid.
While mainstream radio will not play Trojan records, pirate radio begins broadcasting Jamaican music. ibid.
Trojan skinhead culture is sweeping through the UK and a new market for Jamaican music is emerging. ibid.
Between March and June 1969 Desmond Decker’s The Israelites sells over a million records. ibid.
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador now account for almost 70% of immigration into the United States. The Americas with Simon Reeve V, BBC 2020
In Australia illegal migrants and refugees face mandatory indefinite detention while their cases are being considered. It’s one of the toughest immigration policies of any democratic country in the world. Australia with Simon Reeve II, BBC 2020
Life in England hasn’t always been easy for the Irish. For some, it was a shock. And integration wasn’t always the done thing. But the English weren’t always keen on us. In the ’70s the Troubles brought inconceivable horror and suffering to the streets of Birmingham: there were consequences for the local Irish. A Very British History s2e1: Irish, BBC 2020
Most would agree that the Birmingham Irish community we see today started in the years following the Second World War. ibid.
According to the 1951 census there were about 36,000 Irish-born people living in Birmingham; 10 years later that number had increased by more than 20,000. ibid.
Despite discrimination, there was work, especially in construction. ibid.
Families like mine have been coming to the UK to build new lives since the end of the Second World War. After we transformed Britain’s bland post-war dining scene, becoming the first foreign cuisine to become widely established here. A Very British History s2e2: Chinese
In the 1940s there were only a few thousand Chinese people settled here. ibid.
132,994. My dad and thousands like him came here from his homeland for jobs in factories. When their families joined them later in the ’70s many faced hardship and they faced hostility on their doorstep. A Very British History s2e3: Bangladeshis
Our culture, our curries and our community are now a unique part of British life. ibid.
By the early ’60s there were around 5,000 people from present day Bangladesh in the UK. ibid.
In 1971 present day Bangladesh was the eastern part of Pakistan; the other half of the country – western Pakistan – was a thousand miles away. ibid.
In the 1970s Brick Lane was the hub for Bengalis in London. ibid.
This untold hidden industry that was happening in many homes across East London. ibid.
But it was the united community itself that now had the momentum to keep challenging the far right. ibid.
Officials here this week reckon that only 40% of the people who set out from Vietnam by boat to reach Hong Kong ever make it. A Very British History s2e4: Whatever Happened to the Boat People?
40 years ago the world knew them as the Boat People – refugees who’d fled Vietnam. Some found safety in Britain. But scattered around the country, focusing on their future not their past, the new community became almost invisible. ibid.
A protracted legal battle: John Lennon vs US Government, for his right to remain in America. A Life in Ten Pictures: John Lennon, BBC 2021
There are three words that summarise the whole history of humanity: civilisation, colonisation, extermination … between colonists and colonised … Entire civilisations in the western hemisphere were wantonly destroyed, setting the western world on a path of greed and destruction. Exterminate All the Brutes I: The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance, Sky Documentaries 2021