If Britain never passed the Nationality Act of 1948

John Davis

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If the British Nationality Act of 1948(which allowed hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans, Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis to permanently settle in Britain) was never passed, would Britain be a more conservative, homogenous country like Poland or Hungary considering that they never would've had to become a multicultural society to accomadate those immigrants?
 
The Byronic Hero

The Byronic Hero

John Davis said:
If the British Nationality Act of 1948(which allowed hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans, Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis to permanently settle in Britain) was never passed, would Britain be a more conservative, homogenous country like Poland or Hungary considering that they never would've had to become a multicultural society to accomadate those immigrants?
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This sounds like a trick question.
 
NCW8

NCW8

There were already refugees in Britain from WWII, not all of whom would be inclined to return home, so there’s going to be some immigration anyway. Without immigration from the Commonwealth another group, such as the Poles, could be faced with prejudice.

The British Nationality Act wasn’t passed out of pure philanthropy. Britain was facing a manpower shortage after WWII. Without the manpower provided by immigrants, recovery from the war is going to take longer and Britain is going to be a less prosperous place than OTL. This could well see Britain turning more to Socialism than it did OTL - obviously not full communist, but something more like Italy.
 

John Davis

Banned
NCW8 said:
There were already refugees in Britain from WWII, not all of whom would be inclined to return home, so there’s going to be some immigration anyway. Without immigration from the Commonwealth another group, such as the Poles, could be faced with prejudice.

The British Nationality Act wasn’t passed out of pure philanthropy. Britain was facing a manpower shortage after WWII. Without the manpower provided by immigrants, recovery from the war is going to take longer and Britain is going to be a less prosperous place than OTL. This could well see Britain turning more to Socialism than it did OTL - obviously not full communist, but something more like Italy.
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Or they could’ve just started a temporary guest worker program like Germany did.
 
NCW8

NCW8

John Davis said:
Or they could’ve just started a temporary guest worker program like Germany did.
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Yeah, that German guest worker program has certainly prevented the development of a multicultural society.

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As @Ingsoc says, those guest workers are going to settle down in Britain, marry, have children and lead to pretty much the same situation as if the British Nationality Act had been passed.
 

John Davis

Banned
NCW8 said:
Yeah, that German guest worker program has certainly prevented the development of a multicultural society.

51GEub5nKEL.jpg


As @Ingsoc says, those guest workers are going to settle down in Britain, marry, have children and lead to pretty much the same situation as if the British Nationality Act had been passed.
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Although that could’ve been prevented if the West German government had repatriated them (probably with financial incentives) during the economic recession in the 1970s rather than giving them family reunification rights. The same goes for the rest of European countries that implemented guest worker programs during the 1940s-1970s.
 
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NCW8

NCW8

John Davis said:
Although that could’ve been prevented if the West German government had repatriated them (probably with financial incentives) during the economic recession in the 1970s rather than giving them family reunification rights. The same goes for the rest of European countries that implemented guest worker programs during the 1940s-1970s.
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Oh, dear. Germany expelling an “unwanted” minority - I wonder why they didn’t do that?

To go back to the British case, by the Seventies these guest workers will have been living there for twenty years or more and have children born there. By that time Britain was their home. As Lenny Henry put it, when a similar financial incentive was suggested, “I’d gladly take a thousand pounds to go back home to Dudley.”
 

John Davis

Banned
NCW8 said:
Oh, dear. Germany expelling an “unwanted” minority - I wonder why they didn’t do that?

To go back to the British case, by the Seventies these guest workers will have been living there for twenty years or more and have children born there. By that time Britain was their home. As Lenny Henry put it, when a similar financial incentive was suggested, “I’d gladly take a thousand pounds to go back home to Dudley.”
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Germany had actually attempted to pay guest workers to return after the West and East reunified(Rückkehrprämie). The government could’ve had more success at repatriating guest workers if they hadn’t allowed the guest workers to bring their families into the country and if limits had been placed the amount of workers allowed in and the length of their residency. Britain and the rest of Europe could’ve done the same.
 
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Wimble Toot

Banned
John Davis said:
If the British Nationality Act of 1948(which allowed hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans, Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis to permanently settle in Britain) was never passed, would Britain be a more conservative, homogenous?
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Yes, an even more boring and tedious place to live than it currently is.
 

sparky42

If there were limitations, I wonder if you'd see even more Irish movement over to make up some of the shortfall in population/workers?
 

Ingsoc

Wimble Toot said:
Yes, an even more boring and tedious place to live than it currently is.
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Britain's pretty cool tbf.

John Davis said:
Germany had actually attempted to pay guest workers to return after the West and East reunified(Rückkehrprämie). The government could’ve had more success at repatriating guest workers if they hadn’t allowed the guest workers to bring their families into the country and if limits had been placed the amount of workers allowed in and the length of their residency. Britain and the rest of Europe could’ve done the same.
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Why?
 

John Davis

Banned
Veiovis said:
why they should have done so
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sparky42 said:
Why remove those people? What reason would the EU governments have to do so and what benefits would they get?
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Ingsoc said:
I suspect I may have an idea, but I’m interested to hear anyway.
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Because during the 70s, both the economic recession and deindustrialization caused a lot of those migrants to lose their jobs. Not to mention that a large cultural gap existed between Europeans and non-Europeans. So in retrospect, it would’ve been much easier to simply repatriate them with payment rather than dealing with the issues associated with integration, poverty, and unemployment within those communities that still persist up until this day.
 
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BELFAST

BELFAST

I think the British would need to import workers from elsewhere. Ireland did not import workers in 1948. it still has become multicultural.
 
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