Old and New European Economic Migrants: Whiteness and Managed Migration Policies

In this paper, I explore similarities and differences between the first major scheme to rely on migrants from Central and Eastern Europe to fill vacancies in key sectors of the British economy—the so-called European Volunteer Worker (EVW) schemes introduced in 1946—and current economic migration from the same countries of origin, following the expansion of the EU in 2004. The first scheme was in part a response to postwar dislocation in Europe and the huge problem of displaced peoples. However, the recruits were admitted to the UK as economic migrants rather than as refugees and had to accept allocation to particular sectors of employment as a condition of entry. In the period since 2004, large numbers of migrants from similar parts of Europe have been recruited to work in the UK, largely in low-wage sectors, and in the most recent version of New Labour's managed migration policy are seen as replacements for low-skilled migrants from other regions of the world. Both the early and later groups are white, raising interesting questions about the social construction and meaning of ‘whiteness’ and its status as a marker of privilege in the UK.