ABSTRACT
The Conservatives seldom campaigned on immigration from 1979 until the 2000s, but arguably they did not need to – the reputational legacy of Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher ensured they were seen by voters as the party of immigration control. British governments began to restrict Commonwealth migrants’ rights to work in Britain from 1962 onwards, reducing and controlling the flow of labour migration – after this point, migrants could only come to Britain for work if issued with a voucher by the government. The politics of immigration had changed again by the time of the next election in 1974. With immigration settlements stabilized at their lowest levels for over 20 years and Powell gone from mainstream politics, immigration dropped down the political agenda in the 1980s. Ethnic minority voters neither forgot nor forgave the hostility encouraged and exploited by Conservative politicians and voters and have remained strongly aligned with the Labour party ever since Powell’s 1968.
