No Pass Laws Here! Internal Border Controls and the Global ‘Hostile Environment’

Abstract

This article explores internal border controls in 1980s Britain, examining how they were conceptualised and resisted by a group of activists, the No Pass Laws Here! Group. Drawing on archival research conducted at the Hull History Centre and the Institute of Race Relations and focusing analysis on the Group’s public-facing information leaflets and bulletins, this article explores how internal border controls created differentiated access to employment and the welfare state, targeting migrant and racialised residents and citizens. The No Pass Laws Here! Group’s framing and analysis, in particular their use of pass laws as a frame through which to apprehend the spread of internal border controls, this article argues, allows us to draw out the continuities between policies developed to maintain colonial rule and those present in the metropole.