Brexit: England Has Always Been a Nation of Immigrants

 Everyone knows that the pro-Brexit vote was fueled in large part by a desire to "get back control" of Britain's (read "England's) borders. "Border control!" is of course a euphemism for "there's too many damn foreigners here!"

 

The desire for Brexit was and remains mainly an English one. Wales voted Leave but by a slim margin. Northern Ireland voted Remain, also by a slim margin. 

A solid majority of Scots (61 per cent) voted Remain. Many of them wanted to keep an open border with the EU. Scotland has been bleeding people for centuries. Most Scots want immigrants to come. 

Because England is much more populous than the so-called "Celtic Fringe" of the UK, its pro-Brexit majority dragged the others out of the EU. 

The UK (English Tory) government can now "control the borders" -- except perhaps in Northern Ireland, where an open border with the Irish Republic -- and the EU -- remains. Tory Home Secretaries can put up the "No Entry" sign for "undesirable" foreigners who they not so subtly suggest are mostly criminals and rapists. 

The last two Home Secretaries have promoted that anti-immigrant agenda with a vengeance. Consider the irony: both Priti Patel and Suella Braverman are the children of Asian immigrants who could not have settled in the UK if the current restrictions on migrants were in force at the time. Maybe Freud could help us understand that. 

The Tory and Brexit immigration agenda is based on a false conception of Englishness: the idea that not so long ago this sceptered isle was the home of pure bred Englishmen. Rubbish. 

England has always been full of foreigners. Nearly everybody on the island of Britain is descended from people "from off" as they like to say in the American South, where I lived for many years. 

Leaving aside the prehistoric migrations of pre-Celtic and Celtic peoples, the first recorded foreign invasion is that of the Romans under Emperor Claudius in AD 43. [Image: Emperor Claudius]

The Romans stayed in England and parts of Scotland (Britannia) for almost four centuries. This gave them plenty of time to spread their genes around. Their Army pulled out shortly after 400 to defend Rome against "Barbarian" (mostly Germanic) invasions. 

Some of the German tribes opted to go to Britannia about the same time. We usually call them the Angles and Saxons, but other tribes were also in the mix. The name "England" derives from the Angles (Angle-land). 

During the 5th and 6th centuries the Anglo-Saxons settled most of modern-day England. They pushed the Romanized Celtic Britons to the west and northwest, but also mixed with them, further complicating their DNA. The name "England" derives from the Angles (Angle-Land). [Image: Anglo-Saxon Helmet from Sutton Hoo, Reconstructed, British Museum]

In the modern era, England has often been referred to as an "Anglo-Saxon" nation, but this is a gross oversimplification. Besides the Celtic and Romanized Britons who were already resident, new migrants soon appeared: the Vikings, mainly Danes and Norwegians. [Image: Vikings, from Minnesota. Sorry, but the most accurate image of Vikings I could find]

Scandy hordes first came to England in 793 with a raid on Lindisfarne Monastery in Northumberland. In the following century raids gave way to settlement and conquest. 

The Norwegians focused mainly on Scotland and Ireland, but also northern England. The Danes concentrated on England. Before they were stopped by Alfred the Great, King of Wessex in 878, they had gained control of the eastern half of the country. After a treaty between Alfred and the Danes, this region became known as the Danelaw. 

During the 10th century, Alfred's successors reconquered the Danelaw and established an English kingdom roughly the size of today. The Danes were not through, however. 

In 1013, King Sweyn of Denmark conquered England. He died soon after, but his successors ruled it as part of a Danish Empire until 1042, when his line died out. A half-English, half-Norman king descended from Alfred ascended the throne. 

Edward the Confessor himself had no children. His death in 1066 ended the line of Alfred the Great. The English nobles chose a Saxon, Harold as king. But several other laid claims to the throne. The ultimate winner was yet another foreigner, William of Normandy, better known to history as William the Conqueror. [Image: A not so near likeness of William the Conqueror from the Bayeux Tapestry]

Normandy got its name from Vikings -- "Northmen" -- who settled in that part of what is now France in the 10th century. The Norman invasion army of 1066 also included French knights William bribed with promises of English land. More foreign genes, and a lot of "English" words and customs.

For the next two centuries and more England was ruled by a Norman-French aristocracy which gave us the term "robber barons." By the 14th century, however, the foreign elite began to merge with the locals culturally, linguistically, and genetically. The England of today began to take visible shape, heralded by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the Hundred Years War with France. 

During the Middle Ages one group of "foreigners" was deported from England. In 1290, Edward I (Longshanks) formally expelled the Jews. Massacres of Jews also occurred.

That edict was not overturned until 1656, by Oliver Cromwell, who was tolerant of most people except Catholics, especially Irish Catholics. Jews began to return -- at first in small numbers -- then in much greater numbers in the late 19th and 20th centuries. At that time, they were fleeing pogroms in Tsarist Russia and a general rise in anti-Semitism in Continental Europe.

The mongrelisation of England continued during the Middle Ages and beyond. England was part of a trading world that included merchants and artisans from Italy, France, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and the Hanseatic League. Many people from those places settled in England and made it their home.

When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, renewed persecution of the Protestant (Huguenot) population led many French folks to flee to Britain. Their numbers included many highly skilled merchants and artisans. Among them were the famous Spitalfields silk weavers of East London. 

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 brought another influx of foreigners. Dutch settlers came in the train of their prince, William of Orange, who became William III of England and Scotland. Like most new arrivals, the Dutch suffered from some nasty anti-immigrant behavior for a while.

Daniel Defoe pilloried these xenophobic attacks on the new arrivals and King William in a brilliant poem, "The True Born Englishman." (1701). The poem was extremely popular. It sold more copies than any poem before, which shows that some people were receptive to his message, which in effect was this: we English are a mongrel people and new immigrants will assimilate. 

[Image: William III, of Orange]

Scots poured into England after the Act of Union (1707) merged Scotland and England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. They also aroused resentment, and were often portrayed in popular journals and images as impoverished, barbaric, and avaricious. (See "A Vile Country": Dr Johnson on Scotland and Scots) 

The Irish and Welsh came to England in large numbers as well from the 18th century on. Irish "navvies" virtually built the canal and rail network of Britain, doing backbreaking, dangerous work that would be done by heavy machinery today. Of course, they were looked down upon for their efforts. It seems society tends to look down on those it most depends upon. 

Many Italians came to Britain from the late 19th century bringing good food and delicious ice cream. In the late 20th century people from all over the far-flung British Empire, now Commonwealth, began to arrive, first a trickle, then a flood. Africans, Asians, West Indians, and more recently, Eastern Europeans. 

England is truly a nation of foreigners. It is part of its strength and greatness. Many different peoples, from Roman times on, have merged to create the England of today. If, like the USA, England hasn't always been welcoming to new arrivals, it has always accepted them in time. And for the most part, they have accepted if not glorified English culture, institutions, and customs. 

In 1953, English writer L. P. Hartley published The Go Between. He opened the novel with the now famous line "the past is a foreign country." As a historian, I completely agree. I hope you will agree with me that England, too, is a foreign country. I mean that as a compliment.

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