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Migrants from Commonwealth countries began to come to the UK in increasing numbers in the late 1940s and 1950s. They came because there were not enough jobs in their own countries and because Britain desperately needed workers. They worked mainly in areas of great labour shortage, such as on buses and in hospitals, and settled in areas of cheaper housing in cities such as London and Birmingham. They experienced frequent racial discrimination. Landlords refused to let rooms to black and Irish tenants and ‘colour bars’ operated in some workplaces.

As the British economy picked up in the late 1950s and 1960s, immigration increased to fill vacancies in factories in London, the North and the Midlands. In these instances, men usually came first and were later joined by their families. As a result, Britain’s cities became increasingly multicultural. However, as this was also a period of large-scale emigration of Britons leaving to live elsewhere (such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the number of people leaving the country was higher than the number coming in.

When Asian refugees who had been expelled from East Africa arrived in the UK, they were met with hostility from sections of the press and protests organised by anti-immigration groups. The most prominent of which was the National Front, which wanted to ban all non-white immigration. In response to this, anti-racist activity - in which second-generation migrants took a leading role - took many forms including mass demonstrations and music festivals.

By the early 1980s, high youth unemployment, poor social conditions, racist murders and anger at police tactics directed at young black people resulted in violent confrontations with police in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Liverpool.

The high levels of racial tension led to new legislation being introduced in the form of the Race Relations Act 1965 which made it illegal to discriminate on racial grounds. During the same period, successive governments enacted ever tighter immigration controls by passing the Race Relations Act 1968 and the Race Relations Act 1975.