Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
The publicity for this film about British attitudes toward immigration, both now and way back when, is likely to focus on Katie Hopkins, who is here given the chance to spout her controversial view of the world.
Away from her headlinegrabbing appearance, however, lies a different kind of film with Ian Hislop proving a thoughtful guide to the late Victorian/early Edwardian age when British attitudes towards immigration changed forever, transforming us from a country that prided itself on its open doors into the would-be Fortress Britain of today.
It’s a balanced, admirably even-handed take in which people are given the chance to make their cases, both for and against migration. Yet what lingers longest in the mind is a newspaper leader column from 1853, which passionately declares: “Every civilised people on the face of the earth must be fully aware that this country is the asylum of nations, and it will defend that asylum to… the last drop of its blood.” We live in very different times now, yet it’s hard not to feel that something once inherent to this nation has been sadly, irrevocably lost. Sarah Hughes