In (B)ordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire, Nadine El-Enany characterizes Britain as “a racially and colonially configured space” (3). El-Enany traces the development of Britain's citizenship and immigration law regimes. Putting race at the center of analysis, she emphasizes the role of migration laws as forms of continuing colonial violence. Drawing upon meticulous and thorough surveys of historical and legal materials, El-Enany concludes that Britain today is “the spoils of empire” and that its colonial legacies remain and are felt everywhere “across the world” (231). People from former colonies are deprived of the right to enter Britain and, consequently, of access to “stolen colonial wealth” (130). While the torment of the Windrush generations continues, as recently as April 2021, it became apparent that tens of thousands of soldiers from the British Empire, predominantly Indian and African personnel, received unequal remembrance treatment during and after the First World War. Millions of soldiers from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean participated in the war as British subjects, on the same basis as those born and bred in London and Manchester. The principle of equality of treatment in death was nonetheless achieved only in Europe. The famous pledge by Palmerston, “Civis Britannicus sum,” has never provided the same rights and entitlements to all residents of the multiracial and multilinguistic empire.

(B)ordering Britain is structured into five chapters. Chapter 1 prepares the ground for a historical analysis of the following chapters. In it, El-Enany explains the relationship between colonialism, migration, and law, and she explores the role of immigration law in categorizing people into those with and those without the right to enter and stay in Britain. With the racial categorization and ordering created and sustained by immigration law, those descendants of the colonized are even today made vulnerable and disadvantaged. In chapter 2, El-Enany traces the course of the enactment of the 1905 Aliens Act and examines its racializing effects despite the race-neutral form of law. In chapter 3, her focus is the years between the British Nationality Act 1948 and the British Nationality Act of 1981. When the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 defined for the first time in history the status of British subjecthood, the intention of policy makers was to codify a single citizenship structure that covered the entirety of the British Empire. After the Second World War, however, the British government had to accept that it was no longer capable of holding that prewar structure. The British Nationality Act of 1948 was passed in response to Canada's own definition of citizenship, created under the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946. Instead of establishing a citizenship of its own, the British government decided to confer citizenship status of the United Kingdom and Colonies on those in Britain and the remaining colonies. In addition, the holders of this citizenship and the citizenship of the independent Commonwealth countries shared the status of Commonwealth citizenship, and they were all granted, as were Londoners, rights and entitlements inside Britain. Consequently, those West Indians who boarded the Empire Windrush in 1948, and all non-white Commonwealth citizens who arrived before the Immigration Act of 1971 were entitled to work and reside in Britain. The British Nationalities Act of 1981 finally established the statutory category of British citizenship, which was in line with successive immigration acts in 1962, 1968, and 1971. The main purpose of these immigration acts was to deprive Commonwealth citizens without the ancestral link of the right to enter and abide in Britain. According to El-Enany, the British Nationalities Act of 1981 serves as a declaration that postimperial Britain is “a live colonial space” and constituted as “white” (131).

In chapter 4, El-Enany explores Britain's responses to refugees and asylum seekers and rightly points out that a large number of asylum seekers in Britain today are from former colonies. Formerly British subjects, they were subject to immigration control during the 1960s and 1970s. Today's asylum legislation is totally removed from Britain's imperial past, barring the entry of yesterday's subjects to Britain and consequently the access to the wealth that used to belong to them. Chapter 5 deals with Britain's relationship with the European Economic Community (now the European Union) and touches on the issues with Brexit. The European Union is not free from colonial history, and Britain's European partners, just like Britain itself, have been “accommodating of its imperial identity” (175). Britain actively exploited the framework of the European Union when it could consolidate its capacity for immigration control. With the opt-out option in use, contrary to what Brexiteers argued, Britain never lost control of its borders. Membership in the European Economic Community was seen as “a substitute for the British Empire” (176). In leaving the European Union, Britain would be able to “regain the global influence . . . diminished as a consequence of EU membership” (16). In both cases, Britain's colonial history and postimperial configuration were large and persistent. (B)ordering Britain is a timely and valuable contribution to an impressive line of work on citizenship and immigration law and their relationship with the meaning of Britishness. In her conclusion, El-Enany asserts, “the British national project is one of white ownership of colonial spoils” (225). Yet, as her title suggests, bordering the state and making a judicial definition of membership is an ongoing practice that never ends. Concepts of citizenship are regarded as contingent and controversial in their use and meaning. They are not static but flexible because of their contestation and negotiation. Obviously, race and empire have been crucial components upon which the notion of Britishness is interpreted. Nonetheless, Britishness has never been exclusively “commensurate with whiteness” (4) but understood as malleable and variegated. The redefinition of the meaning of Britishness is inevitable and predicted to continue. I therefore wonder if her conclusion is as concrete and definite as she laments.