As a grandchild of the Windrush generation, I listened with annoyance to the rhetoric of the Conservatives’ recent insubstantial apology to my forebears.
I cannot see how Amber Rudd’s position is still tenable given her inadequate response to the recent betrayal of Commonwealth nationals. And Theresa May’s latest U-Turn little to change my opnion. The fact that the government waited until crisis point before doing anything removes any conviction from its subsequent apology.
When people like my great grandfather arrived here in 1948, The British Nationality Act meant that they arrived as British citizens. And yet what has transpired recently has completely disregarded that. Attacking Rudd in the House of Commons, Tottenham MP David Lammy was right to say that the day of Rudd’s apology should be remembered as a “day of national shame”.
Rudd’s inability to – or refusal to – answer Lammy’s request to say how many British people had been detained or deported showed how detached and remorseless this Tory government is.
During this weeks Episode of the Big Q we spoke to equalities spokesperson for the green party Rashid Nix, and green party board executive Chidi Oti Obihara about the Windrush scandall.
Here are some facts:
1948
The 1948 British Nationality Act is passed, giving Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) status to all British subjects from the United Kingdom and her colonies.
A ship – the Empire Windrush – docks at Tilbury from the Caribbean, carrying 492 passengers.
1951-1961
The number of people living in in Britain who were born in the West Indies grows from around 15,000 in 1951 to around 172,000 in 1961.
1962
The Government enacts the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, making it more difficult to enter the UK from the Commonwealth.
1972
By 1972 you could only come to live in Britain if you had a work permit or had parents or grandparents who were already citizens. This massively reduced the flow of migration from the Caribbean.
It is the period between 1961 and 1972 that paved the way for the mess that the Conservative party is only now addressing. Between those years the government kept an incomplete record of who was living here, and many children who arrived on their parents’ passports never formally became British citizens.
But as a result of the Tory clampdown on immigration over the last few years, employers and landlords have been required to check employee and tenant paperwork, which has left many people unfairly exposed and sometimes in danger of deportation.
The Home Secretary Amber Rudd has now finally confirmed new measures to try and put this right. These include:
- The setting up of a task force to help those affected.
- Measures to allow for the gathering of evidence on behalf of immigrants.
- An assurance that all cases will be resolved within two weeks.
- The waiving of all fees for new documents – normally £229.
But for all of those who might have found themselves denied health care, or the right to work, or who have been detained in the country they called home, or even threatened with deportation from it, this belated response is of little comfort.
Liam MacDevitt[easy-tweet tweet=”Winrush’s Rudd into U turn. ” user=”@liam_macdevitt”]
