An alien concept? The continuity of anti‐alienism in British society before 1940

Abstract

Anti‐alienism has usually been seen as a peripheral phenomenon in British society and politics. However, if anti‐alienism is understood broadly as a form of discourse as well as a political movement it emerges as a continuous and central theme. Anti‐alienism was the popular response to the first mass immigration into Britain, overwhelming earlier pro‐alien traditions of asylum. Anti‐alien legislation and the state apparatus for enforcing it established mechanisms for the transmission of anti‐alienism as a concept, movement and set of practices from the 1880s to the 1940s. Seen in this context, internment in both world wars was made possible by accumulated administrative experience and a popular opinion habituated to anti‐alien practices.