Shabana Mahmoud, the British Home Secretary, proposed that Britain, with 54 ex-colonies, copied the immigration policy of Denmark, with hardly any colonial experience at all. This is the level of intellectual emptiness and rot that informs Britain’s immigration policy.
WWI (1914 - 1918) was a European war. Britain knew it would lose the war without assistance from today’s immigrant countries. Britain therefore recruited over 3 million labourers and soldiers from its colonies; some 1.5 million Indians (including Bangladeshis and Pakistanis), and the rest mostly Africans. Britain very heavily mobilised the colonial economies to provide foodstuffs and raw materials to sustain the war effort. Britain extracted substantial financial resources from the colonies in the form of tax revenues, war loans, and ‘voluntary’ contributions; at least £100 million (£150 billion in today’s money) came from India, and £6 million (£9 billion in today’s money) from Nigeria. WWI very severely impacted the colonies; it placed immense strain on local resources and economies, farmers were forced to sell food crops at fixed, low prices, infrastructure and other developments were halted, and dissents and protests were brutally suppressed.
WWII (1939 - 1945) also was a European war. Britain knew it could not win the war without assistance from today’s immigrant countries. Britain therefore recruited over 21/2 million soldiers from its colonies; over 90,000 Africans fought and defeated the Japanese Imperial Army in Burma. Britain recruited 6,000 men and 80 women from the Caribbean for the Royal Air Force (RAF), and thousands more for the merchant navy, crucial for transporting goods and personnel to the war front and elsewhere. Caribbean men were even put to work as lumberjacks in Scotland. Britain used colonial troops to guard POWs, move supplies from place to place, and build infrastructures, such as airfields, bunkers, and roads. Britain got the bulk of the foodstuffs and raw materials from its African colonies. Britain extracted financial resources from all in the form of loans, gifts, and interest-free loans to purchase aircrafts and tanks. WWII very severely impacted the colonies in much the same way as did WWI.
After WWII, Britain knew it had neither the manpower nor the financial resources needed to recover from, and repair the very extensive war damage. Britain therefore actively invited citizens from its colonies to immigrate to work for its economic recovery and infrastructure repair. Indeed, the British Nationality Act 1948 was enacted to grant the status of British subject to citizens of the Commonwealth. Britain invited immigrants to work across a wide range of jobs. Britain immigrated thousands en mass from the Caribbean, the Windrush generation, who were essential to rebuilding the country, to staffing the National Health Service (NHS), to manufacturing, and to running the public transport network.
In its recruitment practices, spanning a period of about 3 decades, Britain emphasised to its colonial subjects that they, like all English men, would be serving as a patriotic duty and as fulfilment of loyalty to the Crown. The government represented to potential recruits, and made them believe, that Britain was their ‘mother country’. The term ‘mother country’ in this instance referred to a concrete legal entity. First, the British Parliament while not directly elected by its colonial subjects nevertheless represented their interests. Second, the Declaratory Act 1766 gave Parliament unlimited legislative power over the colonies. The legal status of Britain as ‘mother country’ gave rise to legitimate expectations for its colonial subjects that Britain was a country to which they were entitled to freely immigrate.
During the colonial era, Britain acted as if it was entitled to all the natural resources of its colonies in Africa and the Middle East. The colonies were expected to serve the British interest and promote its wealth and power. The successor Anglo-American Alliance (AAA) believed that despite independence in the 1950s and 1960s, it was still entitled to all the natural resources of the British ex-colonies. Therefore, the AAA used its CIA and M16 to remove any government of any ex-colony that defied this entitlement. The AAA simply bombed any country, such as Libya, whose government the CIA/M16 could not destabilise or remove.
In its military interventions overseas, for example, in Libya, Iraq and Syria, Britain emphasised to the natives that benefits would accrue to them from the intervention, that life would be better for them afterwards. In the event, and in all cases, life became worse, much much worse; military intervention directly caused political and security collapse, widespread instability, sectarian conflict, weapon proliferation, destruction and desolation, and casualties and humanitarian catastrophe. Under international law, Britain is ‘responsible nation’ for this disaster, and therefore Britain is duty bound to make full reparation for the injury it caused. Touting the UN as giving authority for the military interventions is no defence against liability. The legal status of Britain as ‘responsible nation’ gave rise to legitimate expectations for the peoples of these militarily ravaged countries that Britain was a country to which they were entitled to freely emigrate in recompense.
The Yoruba Party in the UK (YPUK) believes that these legal propositions should be litigated in the British courts by the means of Judicial Review. If you agree, join us at www.yorubapartyuk.org
(nb: Please show this article to your legal team if you are in court or contemplating court action.)