The Construction of the Hostile Environment: A Temporal Analysis of the UK’s Asylum and Immigration Legislation from 1900 to 2023

Abstract

The contemporary asylum regime in the UK is a harsh reality for people attempting to seek refuge in this country. Today's so-called hostile environment has developed over many years: in fact, this thesis shows that hostile environment legislation has developed over more than a century from the start of restrictions in 1905 and the Aliens Act of that year, culminating as of 2023 in the 2023 Illegal Migration Act. The thesis maps the development of the legislation in conjunction with the socio-historic context in which legislation is introduced, both in terms of domestic factors and the geopolitical position of the UK. In particular, the 1971 Immigration Act is considered as a case study as this was a pivotal moment in the UK's asylum regime development when the UK effectively moved towards Europe and away from the Commonwealth.

In addition to the development of the legislation, aspects of the law-making process, in terms of parliamentary debates and election pledges, are examined to assess levels of hostility and other factors which decision-makers consider relevant in the development of the hostile environment. Not only does this look at the content of both, but it examines parliamentary and electoral discourse and compares the two, taking account of party politics and electioneering as a factor in the hostile environment’s development. From the evidence presented, the thesis argues that the hostile environment has been incrementally constructed, and this has been facilitated by the negative discourse of elite decision-makers. The thesis adopts a theoretical approach of ‘temporal constructivism’, which emphasises the importance of small, incremental change, to help explain the development of the UK’s hostile environment.