A state of racism exists between some of the citizens of the United Kingdom. Studies taken by the BBC in 2014 and 2015 claim racism is on the rise in the UK, with more than one third actually admitting they are racially prejudiced. Relations between different ethnicities within the United Kingdom have resulted in cases of race riots and racist murder perpetrated by individuals of all races.
Since the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the United Kingdom has never implemented any laws that officially discriminate or segregate on the grounds of race or ethnicity. Furthermore, it has never been an offence for persons of different ethnicities to marry one another. It has never been the case that a British citizen has been denied the vote on the basis of his race or ethnicity. In the 20th century, Britain began restricting immigration under the Aliens Restriction Act 1905. This was mainly aimed at Jews fleeing persecution in Russia. Before the Act, Britain was mostly a nation of emigrants: the Puritans fled to the Thirteen Colonies and the Lowland Clearances and the Highland Clearances of Scotland caused similar emigration patterns. Manchester and Bristol saw riots over early industrialisation conditions, and Victorian England is best described as Dickensian—it was unfriendly to the lower classes, and the welfare state was not invented until the time of Asquith and Lloyd George. Britain did have an ad-hoc asylum policy for cases of religious persecution but it was curtailed during the First World War by both the Alien Restriction Act 1914 and the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914. Despite restrictions, Britain was among the nations which accepted many immigrants prior to and following WWII.