Refugees, Race and the Legal Concept of Asylum in Britain

This book critically interrogates the principle of asylum for refugees in UK law and proposes that, when faced with the migration of non-European refugee groups, this principle has often been limited. The book considers the response of the State to the migration of various groups of refugees through five centuries. The reaction of the legal system to the arrival of gypsies and Huguenots from the Gudor period is analysed. The responses to the arrival of African refugees from the American War of Independence is also considered here, along with an examination of the reactions to refugees from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars; various European refugee groups in the mid-Victorian period; Jews from Eastern Europe and later from Nazism; and groups displaced in Europe as a result of the Second World War.
Refugees, Race and the Legal Concept of Asylum in Britain also provides a detailed discussion of the backlash against African and Asian refugee groups, in particular, as against the East African Asians, Vietnamese and Tamils from Sri Lanka. An analysis of the major legislative reforms of the 1990s which have been directed against the settlement of Asian and African refugees is also presented. The post-Second World War period is scrutinised in the context of the failure of European human rights law and international norms of refugee protection to secure the principle of asylum, and the implications of the development of a 'Fortress Europe' that is premised on the tight control of non-European migrants are drawn out.