I don’t think the Poms went fishing for foreign players, it was the players themselves beating on their door. Turning them away in my opinion would have been grossly unfair on the individual wanting to make some life changes. Zim and SA are in rapid irreversible economic decline and anyone with the option of moving out will seriously consider it, especially white talented rugby and cricket players because they know they haven’t got much chance of even playing provincial sport. For those that think of us as settlers- there are surprisingly few now that can access other passports. If you think about it, a section of grandparents (those of European origin not Dutch) were British born, then their offspring were first generation and entitled to British passports, then the next generation, basically from the 1980’s onwards were second generation and not automatically eligible (ancestral visa maybe). So basically we’re Africans whether the “other” Africans like it or not, yet we’re accorded 3rd class status. The current crop of white kids of British decent are third generation and they’ve got zero chance of obtaining UK passports unless Home Office make periodic strange changes, which they do occasionally. My cousins got passports because they very recently changed a law that allowed citizenship of grandchildren of grandfathers who had been employed by the English government to come to the colonies to work in a civil service capacity.
When you colonize the planet there are repercussions
Now consider this- there are probably close to 800 000 black Zimbabweans that live in the UK, and a percentage of them have been there for 10 years or more, which now means they’re naturalized and have passports. I’d guess that there are probably more black “Zimbabwean” UK passport holders now than there are white “Zimbabwean” UK passport holders. It opens up massive opportunities for the movement of people, both legitimately and otherwise. If you go to Slough, Shona is practically the main language on the High street.
Every trick in the book is used to get over to the UK in search of a better life and opportunities. I’ve heard many black Zimbos with Pom accents nowadays.
We live in a global village and the lid has been blown right off and the UK in particular must be regretting the days of empire
Diaspora remittances now account for a huge percentage of our foreign currency.