The British Government and the European Voluntary Worker Programmes

There was no immediate solution for the millions of refugees from countries in Eastern Europe refusing repatriation from Allied occupied territories after the Second World War. One of the first moves to help end the crisis was a contract labour scheme launched by the British government known as the European Voluntary Worker programme. Government claimed it was tackling chronic domestic labour shortages and limiting suffering of the refugees in recruiting them to work and settle in Britain. In reality the programme also satisfied the foreign policy objective of removing politically embarrassing refugees that had collaborated with the Axis that were complicating negotiations and post-war development policy. The programme also went some way to addressing some underlying demographic concerns. The dramatic result was that the programme helped double of the pre-war alien population in less than two years during a period of national austerity and social upheaval. This book revises an important period of post-war immigration history by exploring the architecture of public administration addressing human displacement and immigration in an era of expanding state bureaucracy.