Settlers from the Caribbean islands, Asia, Northern Ireland and Africa were invited to come to Britain to work and help rebuild the economy through their work in the National Health Service, public transport bodies and the manufacturing and construction industries. Between 1946 and 1951 there was a recruitment of 450000 workers from Europe. The British were in need of them, because of the reconstruction after the Second World War and because of the fact that Great Britain had not enough workers of her own. To remove the lack of workers too, younger people in the former colonies of Pakistan or India were enlisted for the work in the colonial mother country. Now there was a chain migration, more and more inhabitants of the former colonies immigrated to Britain. Soon their relatives and friends followed, so that only women, children and old people remained in their villages of emigration. The number of the ethnic minorities in Britain increased in the sixties because of the following family’s members and a relatively high birth-rate
The West Indies was colonized by British, French, Spanish and Dutch. Between 1948 and 1971 there was a wave of immigration to Britain from the West Indies; most came to Britain because of the fore mentioned labour shortages. As most lived in poverty they were happy to oblige. Most went to urban areas, where there were the most job opportunities. However, some long-established African Caribbean communities have their origins in those cities’ significance as major maritime ports, and pre-date post-war black immigration. During the late 1950s and into the 1970s, ‘immigrant’ meant ‘black person’, though the majority of people entering Britain to settle here were white.
After 1945 most immigrants in Great Britain came from Ireland. Till about 1980 85 0379 inhabitants of England were born in Ireland. 32% of them lived in the south-east of England and 32% lived in the area of London. The main reason for the Irish to immigrate was the search for work. Because of the influx of cheap labour force, Great Britain offered Ireland unlimited freedom of movement
Roma gypsies and travellers also came to Britain after World War 2 many came to flee persecution and abuse of their human rights. Many had already fled to western European countries but had met with persecution there and did not meet with equal treatment to other asylum seekers in these countries so Britain with its already thriving ethnic minority communities and image of tolerance seemed more inviting also many had heard of good economic prospects in Britain.
Eastern Europeans including Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians made p many of the refugee camps across the world at the end of the Second World War. Between 1946 and 1950 about 85 000 came to Britain under special resettling schemes after the war. They were welcomed by the government because of labour shortages. Britain also took 21 000 Hungarian refugees fleeing communist persecution in the 1950’s. In the 1990’s fighting in southern Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. This left nearly 2 million displaced people in this area by 2001. Due to demands for Chechnya independence there were many military attacks on them from Russia. Over the past ten years the number of asylum seekers from Eastern Europe has increased. Conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo have raised the number of refugees seeking protection from persecution in their homeland. Also, a large proportion of Roma from countries such as Romania and the former Czechoslovakia have sought asylum in Britain as policies to appease minorities are directed at everyone but themselves.
Although each individual group had their own reasons for immigration, i.e. Jews came for religious freedom, Italians and Asians came for Work and Russians came to escape persecution, there are some reasons that run through all groups such as political persecution within there own countries. Every year millions of Africans flee wars in their own country and poverty and persecution. Many take desperate measures to flee their homelands and make their way to Britain such as the 58 illegal immigrants found suffocated inside a lorry at Dover in June 2000. This pattern runs through many of the earlier groups as people seem to view Britain as a land of hope and promise such as the people who moved to Britain after World War 2. although most groups have originally left their own countries for many different reasons they all seem to have similar reasons for choosing Britain over other European countries, because of its image of tolerance and its historical nature of a multicultural society stretching back to the middle ages with Normans, Celts, angles, Saxons and Jutes but to name a few. Also for its image of wealth and prosperity that people feel they will gain by moving to the U.K.
