Yesterday I mentioned that I was looking for a video of Enoch Powell explaining the start of substantial third-world immigration to Britain. This isn’t the video I was looking for, but it’s similar. A bonus in this one is hearing how British-y William F. Buckley’s speaking style is. In some ways this clip, made in 1969, seems archaic – even to me.

This first clip is two minutes long:

This second clip is about three and a half minutes long

That’s from 1969, and a lot has happened since then, as you might imagine. Here’s a short summary:

Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the former territories of the British Empire and the member states of the EU and EFTA. Since the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, migration from countries outside the European Economic Area has dominated immigration to the UK. The British Nationality Act 1948 granted residency rights to all colonial subjects, approximately 800 million, enabling mass post-war immigration. The Commonwealth Immigrants Acts (1962, 1968) and Immigration Act 1971 rescinded these rights by introducing work vouchers and ancestral requirements that favoured those with parent or grandparent to have been born in the UK. The British Nationality Act 1981 abolished the 1948 citizenship status.

Since the United Kingdom acceded to the European Communities in the 1970s and the creation of the European Union in the early 1990s, people have migrated from member states of the European Union, exercising one of the European Union’s Four Freedoms. Migration to and from Central and Eastern Europe increased since 2004, following the accession of eight Central and Eastern European states to the European Union. Following the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020 at 11 pm GMT, this freedom of movement ceased. Citizens of EEA+CH member states no longer had an automatic right to move to or reside permanently in the UK without a visa. A smaller number have come as illegal immigrants, many of which have claimed asylum. …

The UK Government can also grant settlement to foreign nationals, which confers on them indefinite leave to remain in the UK, without granting them British citizenship. Grants of settlement are made on the basis of various factors, including employment, family formation and reunification, and asylum …

Long-term net migration is estimated to have reached a record high of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023, with immigration at 1,469,000 and emigration at 525,000. According to the Office for National Statistics’ provisional estimate, released November 2025, long-term net migration in the year ending June 2025 was +204,000 … Total immigration was 898,000: non-EEA+CH nationals accounted for 75% of total immigration (670,000), British nationals comprised 16% (143,000), and EEA+CH nationals constituted 9% (85,000). The top three nationalities from non-EU+ countries immigrating on work-related visas were Indian, Pakistani, and Nigerian.

It’s complicated, to say the least.