Migration and the metropole: The United Kingdom's colonial use of the offshore to externalize and manage migration

The United Kingdom and related settler-colonial states continue to use colonial forms of control over spaces beyond their central sovereign territory in order to manage ‘undesirable’ populations. While no longer spaces of formal Empire, former colonial powers use spaces both near and far from the metropole to serve colonial aims. This article examines how contemporary British migration policy relies on the use of spaces outside of Great Britain to externalize the border. By evaluating four distinct sites, this article traces the ways contemporary British migration externalization efforts are the result of enduring colonial logics. The sites of study are Rwanda, Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory), the Bibby Stockholm barge, and Calais. Through shifting geographies and cycles of opening and closure, each of these sites work in varied ways to externalize the border, rendering ‘the metropole’, Great Britain, increasingly inaccessible to vulnerable migrants.