New citizens of Britain

About 8,000 West Indians were based in Britain as soldiers during the Second World War. Some of them decided to return to Britain after the war because of poor economic prospects at home. They were citizens of the British Empire, with the right to hold British passports and live and work in Britain. In fact many of them considered England as their 'mother country'.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Britain had a strong economy and needed more workers. Many young Indians and Pakistanis came to Britain, where they could easily get jobs. Unlike the West Indians, Pakistanis and Indians never thought that they were moving to a 'mother country'. They moved for economic reasons.

In 1962 Britain passed a law, the Commonwealth Immigration Act, which meant that people from countries like Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan and Jamaica could no longer go and live in Britain unless they had a job there. Then in 1968 Britain passed a new Act. Now only people whose fathers or grandfathers were born in Britain were allowed to live there.

In 1965, the first Race Relations Act made racial discrimination a criminal offence, but it didn't cover housing or employment. Stronger Race Relations Acts were passed in 1968 and 1976. 'No Coloureds' and 'Europeans Only' signs were now illegal.

The third Race Relations Bill in 1976 was stronger and more extensive than previous ones. It set up the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to look into cases of discrimination on racial grounds.

Despite the laws against discrimination, there are still many inequalities. In proportion to their numbers, members of ethnic minorities still do more unskilled jobs, and make up a bigger share of the unemployed, than the majority of the population. But in education they now generally do better than others, and there is a growing number of politicians, lawyers, actors, writers, academics, musicians, business people and sports stars who provide models of successful lives in a multi-ethnic society.