Black UK WINDRUSH

The British nationality Act of 1948 gave citizens of the UK and Colonies status and the right of settlement in the UK.
This resulted that between 1948=1970 nearly half a million people moved form the Caribbean to Britain which faced sever labour shortages after WW11.

These immigrants were later referred to as the Windrush generation.
because many of them had come to the UK on the ship called HMT Empire Windrush.

The only official records of many ‘windrush’ immigrants when they had originally come to the UK were the landing cards which were collected when they disembarked from ships in UK ports. Over subsequent decades these cards were routinely used by British immigration officials to verify dates of arrival for borderline immigration cases.
Any one from the Commonwealth, who arrived before 1973 was granted an automatic right to remain, unless they left for more than 2 years. For the next 40 years anyone in that category were never given or asked to provide documentary evidence of their right to remain.

In 2009 landing cards were earmarked, by the Labour government , for destruction, as part of a broader clean up of paper records. It was implemented in 2010 by the incoming coalition government.

Whistleblowers and retired immigration officers warned managers there would be a problem- these cards were the only record of their arrival.

Theresa May was Home Secretary when the hostile environment policy was introduced in October 2012. The idea was to reduce UK immigration figures promised in the 2010 Conservative Manifesto. (See hostile environment policy)

In 2018 we had the Windrush scandal. People were wrongly detained, denied legal rights,lost jobs or homes, passports confiscated, denied medical care, threatened with deportation. At least 83 cases cases were wrongly deported -many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrive in the UK before 1973. These were part of the 'Windrush generation.

Since then a hardship scheme has been set up by the Home Office Those classified as illegal immigrants were to be compensated scheme. Very little of the £200 -£570 million set aside has been paid up -just £46,795 ( See Hardship scheme)

On 19th March 2020 the Windrush Lessons Learned Review concluded that the Home Office showed an inexcusable ’ ignorance and thoughtlessnes’ and what had happened had been ’ foreseeable and avoidable’. (See W L L Review)

November 2020 the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the Home Office had broken the law by failing to obey public-sector equality duties by not considering how the policies affected black members of the Windrush generation.

Dexter Bristol and Paulette Wilson are 2 examples of how the ‘Windrush generation’ were seriously let down.