Empire at the Border: Evaluating How Colonial Legal Logics Shape British Immigration Law, 1948–2025

This article examines how contemporary British immigration law continues to operate through legal logics inherited from the colonial era. Challenging the dominant narrative that the 2018 Windrush scandal was a bureaucratic error, it argues instead that such exclusions are systemic and rooted in Britain’s imperial past. Through a postcolonial legal analysis inspired by Spivak’s method of reading ‘against the grain,’ the study examines how colonial techniques, legal dualism, bureaucratic regulation, and the performance of legal neutrality have been incorporated into domestic immigration law since 1948. Drawing on case studies from Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Burma, it shows how colonial governance established racialised legal hierarchies that were repurposed in post-war nationality and immigration statutes. The article critically analyses legislation from 1948 to 1981, the Windrush scandal, and policies such as the 2025 Immigration White Paper to demonstrate the ongoing operation of what Stoler terms ‘imperial duress.’ It concludes that British immigration law has not broken with the empire but internalised its methods, embedding exclusion within legal form. Recognising the specifically colonial nature of this persistence offers a clearer understanding of how law legitimates racialised exclusion and why meaningful reform requires confronting, not erasing, the imperial foundations of the modern British state.