Essential workers, British foreign labour recruitment, 1945-1951

grantor: University of TorontoThis dissertation deals with the Attlee Labour government's foreign labour recruitment policy. The main issues that arise from this recruitment are threefold: the conception of British national identity in the aftermath of the second World War; the British relationship to Europe and to the Empire/Commonwealth in the context of the Cold War; and the economic strategy of the government for postwar reconstruction. The decision to recruit foreign workers to redress labour shortages was taken in the spring of 1947. Prior to that time, Italian, German and east European prisoners of war were put to work by the agriculture and service departments. The findings of the thesis are: (a) While British nationality was defined formally by the 1948 Nationality Act, Britishness as an identity was defined by a number of assumptions that were no less strong for being informally held. The informal definition of Britishness comprised both racial (physical) and socio-cultural assumptions. Assimilability was judged first and foremost by skin colour, but secondarily by perceptions of the propensity of various nationalities to be good citizens of the welfare state. (b) While the recruitment of foreign workers was in large part the government's response to an imbalance in the marketplace, the Marxist paradigm of foreign labour as a reserve army of workers brought in to prop up capitalist economies in crisis does not fit entirely well in the British case. Long term settlement of most foreign recruits raises more complex issues. (c) Aside from the domestic implications of settling foreign workers in Britain, there were important foreign policy implications in the conduct of foreign labour recruitment, particularly in Europe. The British desire to stabilize the European refugee problem, to contribute to European cooperation (without sacrificing British exceptionalism) and to help states such as Italy maintain a western orientation, were important factors in the development and implementation of foreign labour recruitment policy. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Ph.D