Redefining immigration through citizenship? Britain and the case of the 1981 Nationality Act

This chapter investigates the origins, the implications, and the legacy of the 1981 British Nationality Act at the domestic and international levels. Britain has traditionally been one of the great emigration countries, yet after the Second World War this trend started to reverse as the conditions for post-war immigration from the New Commonwealth developed. Gradually a campaign to limit immigration gained support, and a series of immigration control measures were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, together with a move towards a more restrictive definition of “Citizenship”. As for the Thatcher government, the introduction of a new British Nationality Act to define entitlement to British citizenship was not only the fulfilment of an electoral promise, but was also part of a wider strategy of revival of British nationhood, a prominent theme in Thatcherism. The chapter furthermore focuses on the analysis of the political support for the new legislation, which seemed to transcend party divisions and to be an element of consensus that Mrs Thatcher was eager to exploit.