The news spread quickly like a contamination corrupting the future. From midnight on 30 November 1967, anyone who did not hold citizenship of Kenya would have to apply for an “entry certificate” to remain in the country, even if they had been born there. Most of the 200,000 Asians in Kenya knew they were no longer safe. What frightened them most was what might come next in President Kenyatta’s project to “Africanise” his country.
But the Asians did have one thing. In their back pockets, in the top drawers of their desks, kept with the jewellery and the photographs, they each held something respected throughout the world, which they believed they could always count on to protect them: a British passport. Within three months those passports counted for nothing. Alarmed by an increase in the number of Asians from Kenya entering Britain, the Labour government under Harold Wilson introduced emergency legislation to end the freedom of entry of Asians – but not white settlers – from East Africa. The Times called it “probably the most shameful measure that Labour members have ever been asked by their whips to support”.
Content from our partners
