‘marriages of convenience’ carried out solely in order to gain citizenship.11 But by the 1970s and 1980s the size of the immigrant community meant it was plain that any policy aimed at diminishing the size of that community was impossible even if it was deemed desirable. As with countries across the continent, Britain was in a position that it had not intended to be in and would have to improvise its reactions to whatever challenges and benefits this new reality produced. But it was a measure of the unspoken concern about what these challenges comprised that throughout this period even the
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