Thank you, David. There have been some strange attempts suggest that the UK's attitude to refugees was generous, the daftest being the citation of the Huguenots in the 17th century. But why stop there? There are the Normans (though hardly as refugees), the Danes (likewise), the Romans, all those Anglo-Saxons.?In any case I specifically stated it referred from the 1930s onwards (though Michael correctly pointed out that it really started with the 1905 Aliens Act, before that many revolutionary Germans, Russians etc were admitted, including Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin), and the record since then has been dire.Someone even suggested the kindertransport as a plus for us, despite the fact that the children were forced to come alone because British immigration regulations, rather than German exit controls, prevented their parents from accompanying them, so they became orphans, and in any case this wasn't a government initiative but due to the actions of one man, Nicholas Winton.To quote Louise London in 'Whitehall And The Jews, 1933-1948,' “The myth was born that Britain did all it could for the Jews between 1933 and 1945. This comfortable view has proved remarkably durable, and is still adduced to support claims that Britain has always admitted genuine refugees, and that the latest harsh measures against asylum seekers are merely designed to exclude bogus applicants. . .We remember the touching photographs and newsreel footage of unaccompanied Jewish children arriving on the Kindertransports [but] there are no such photographs of the Jewish parents left behind in Nazi Europe. . .The Jews excluded from entry to the United Kingdom are not part of the British experience, because Britain never saw them. . .Memories of the unsuccessful public campaign to persuade the government to rescue Jews from mass murder faded quickly.”
Richard Carter ● 1178d