For decades, illegal immigration has been testing the emotion of Britons, whether it was through the flood of Vietnamese boat people heading for the then UK-controlled territory of Hong Kong, the plight of illegal Chinese immigrants picking cockles in northwest England, or the thousands of people risking all in Calais to get to Britain.

Britain gave shelter to thousands of Vietnamese migrants fleeing Vietnam after 1975, with little fanfare and no apparent disturbance to British culture, in itself a melange of various ethnic groups, from Vikings through to Normans, Celts, West Indians, Africans of various nationalities and Chinese, as well as other Asians all of whom blended in over the centuries, each bringing their own extra spice to the demographics of a country of whose empire it was once boasted "the sun never set".

Chinese integration into the British way of life came in various ways, with British links in Asia - Hong Kong, Canton (Guangdong), Singapore, Malaysia - giving work to ethnic Chinese aboard ships of both the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy.