The report of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review was released on 19 March 2020. This followed an independent inquiry into Home Office immigration policies that led to the wrongful detention, and deprivation of the legal rights, of at least 164 unfortunate people between 2013 and 2018. Sixty-three of these people were deported to the Caribbean. Those deported were then refused the right to return to Britain. The 264-page Windrush report was the result of a thorough investigation by Wendy Williams, an inspector of constabulary, during the course of which she met at least eight hundred people. The timing of the release of the report was unfortunate, coming as it did during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. Nonetheless, the conclusions are noteworthy, demonstrating as they did “systemic operational failings” in the workings of the Home Office. Specifically, the Home Office was accused of “institutional ignorance and thoughtfulness” on race issues, without actually being deemed as “institutionally racist”.
The term “Windrush generation” refers to immigrants who arrived in the UK between 1948 and 1971. Those affected by the Windrush “scandal” happened to arrive as children from the West Indies. They grew up, studied and worked in the UK, but were unable to provide satisfactory documentary evidence of continuous evidence in the UK since 1 January 1973, as required under subsequent changes to immigration policy. These people were to fall victim to the “hostile environment” created by Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary. The resulting individual experiences of several members of the Windrush generation were publicised in harrowing media reports, from 2017 onwards. The resignation of Amber Rudd, Home Secretary, in April 2018, followed soon after, after the issue was raised in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions in March that year.
MV Empire Windrush, a decommissioned German troop-carrier, docked at Tilbury, on the Thames Estuary, on 22 June 1948, with 492 Caribbean men and a Caribbean woman stowaway on board. The passengers, who had sailed from Kingston in Jamaica, had been offered a special one-off fare of £28 10s, an offer which had been massively oversubscribed. It was not the first ship to convey large numbers of West Indian immigrants to Britain, having been preceded by the SS Almanzora and the SS Ormonde, among others, in 1947. The Windrush has, however, become a potent symbol of West Indian immigration to post-war Britain.
The British Nationality Act received royal assent on 31 July 1948, granting Commonwealth citizens the right to live and work in the UK, with ostensibly the same rights as native-born British subjects. This legislation led to mass immigration from the West Indies throughout the 1950s, right until the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962. Numbers swelled in particular after the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 severely limited Caribbean immigration to America. Early arrivals were actively recruited in the West Indies, by London Transport, the Ministry of Health, and the British Hostels and Restaurants Association. Newly arrived West Indians filled in gaps in the workforce caused by post-war labour shortages, particularly as bus conductors, factory workers and nurses .
So, what then went wrong? In October 2012, Theresa May, as Home Secretary, introduced a “hostile environment” for illegal immigration, which she defined as ‘deport first and hear appeals later’. It didn’t help that the UK Border Agency had previously, in 2009, decided to destroy the landing cards of Windrush generation Caribbean-born British citizens, thereby removing any proof of their legal status to reside in the UK. An inability to confirm resident status meant that business employers were forced to withdraw employment, while landlords, banks, social services, and the NHS denied access to their services. Many such people, who had hitherto led lawful and uneventful lives, fully employed, suddenly found themselves stateless. They were frequently detained forcibly and often sent back to West Indian islands where they had no remaining family links. The undignified manner in which many were treated was taken up by national newspapers in 2017, particularly by The Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman and Gary Younge
The Windrush report is a searing indictment of a policy that was ill-considered and rather insensitive, the victims treated with a singular lack of empathy. There is no question that illegal immigration has to be tackled adequately. Unfortunately, “undocumented” people of the Windrush generation were chosen as soft and easy targets, to demonstrate the government’s strong anti-immigration stance, in the face of an apparent inability to confront and deal with the real issues. This victimisation of people who arrived legally in the UK and contributed positively to the British economy is a tragedy that must never be repeated. The Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme will, hopefully, go some way in redressing the financial hardships caused to the victims of a poorly organised attempt at “immigration control”. However, the emotional scars are likely to last for a lifetime.
Ashis Banerjee