The United Kingdom has had a long and complicated relationship with immigration and race; stemming from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to their history of colonialism, Brexit, and the treatment of minority and foreign people, especially the black community in the United Kingdom. I will be exploring the United Kingdom’s history of race and immigration, through the lens of the Windrush generation, especially in light of the recent scandal concerning their right to citizenship. Many have seen this scandal as a blatant show of the United Kingdom’s systemic racial issues, and their failure to protect the black people that have helped to make the United Kingdom what it is today. I write this for people that have given the prime years of their lives, their sweat and blood to systems that have refused to recognise them as equal beings; for the likes of Belly Mujinga, Anthony Bryan, and many more like them.
Windrush
On the 22nd of June 1948, the HMT Empire Windrush docked in the port of Tilbury bringing with it 802 migrants from across the British colonies. Of those 802, 500 were Caribbean migrants that had seen the advertisement for cheap transport to the motherland and with this they migrated to the UK under the 1948 British Nationality Act, to help rebuild the motherland after the devastation of the war. These migrants saw this as an opportunity to access better prospects that were available in the motherland; they were called the “Windrush generation”.
The 1948 British Nationality Act gave citizens of the United Kingdom and its colonies, the right to live and settle in the UK, as British Citizens; with this and various campaigns focused on the Caribbean, the British government was able to encourage mass migration from these colonies to the UK. It was recorded that almost half a million people took part in this mass migration from the Caribbean colonies alone, and as they had the legal right to reside in the UK provided for by the Act, these people did not need and were not given any formal documentation. They carried on as any other UK born citizen would have, had the same official documentation, went to school, worked, paid taxes, enrolled in public, civil and military service, and raised generations in the UK. Even after many of these colonies gained their independence, the concept of the Commonwealth had been developed and these people were again afforded the automatic and legal right to remain and live in the UK if they had arrived before 1973. Anybody else entering after 1973 was to come with a work permit and did not have the luxury to settle in the UK as a citizen, this could only happen if you had a parent or grandparent born in the UK. Before this Act people were not asked upon their arrival to prove their right to remain. These people lived, worked, and raised families in the UK; they helped to rebuild the UK from the ground up after the wake of the war. Many were skilled workers, that built and manned the British transport system, carrying the NHS on their backs, went to war for the country, and believed themselves to be as British as the next person.
This belief came despite all the hardships these black people faced, from racial discrimination to economic disadvantages. Many were opposed to their presence in the UK and wrote to those in power complaining about excessive migration and the pressure it put on white labour forces. Committees were then set up to find ways to check and restrict the immigration and integration of “coloured” people into the British society, the committee later reported back that there were no findings to encourage or put in place restrictions on the migration from the colonies. Many Caribbeans regardless of their work in public service faced mass discrimination based on their race, segregation, and even the trade unions set up to help British workers opted not to do so in the case of these Afro-Caribbean people. From this stemmed many racist riots, attacks on the black community, and fuelled anti- immigration and racist movements in the UK, plaguing the society for decades. Regardless of the restrictive measures, and hostile environment, the Windrush generation were able to build communities, integrate and raise generations in Britain, so why all of a sudden is that all at risk?
Hostile Environment Policy
With the agitation and uprising of the Brexit and Leave movements, tensions in the UK rose in regards to immigration and race. Many claim illegal immigration in the UK had risen and this was the fault of ethnic minorities, particularly Eastern European labour migrants and refugees. Parties like UK Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing populist political party, fostered these ideas and pushed the agenda of these “foreign aliens” taking the jobs of British, drying up and abusing the resources meant for the British, bringing crime to British neighbourhoods and communities, diverting taxpayers money and other racist rhetorics. This anger was channeled mainly towards ethnic minorities, that they believed were endangering the majority white British life.
In 2012 the UK Home Office enacted a set of regulations and measures, termed the “Hostile Environment Policy”; these measures were put in place to make life and living in the UK particularly difficult for those that did not have British national identification, some sort of permit or document proving they had the right to remain in the country. This was done in hopes that these people targeted by the policy would voluntarily leave or self deport, it put certain people that were not immigration officers, under a legal obligation to demand proof of identification or stay in the UK before providing services, for example, the National Health Service (NHS), Landlords, charities, banks, employees, and community welfare agencies. Fines of up to 10,000 Great British Pounds were given to those that did not carry out this legal obligation. Many saw these measures as a way to reduce immigration into the UK and fulfill the Conservative Party’s promise of higher deportation rates. The Home Secretary at that point, Theresa May said “The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants”, the only issue with this policy is that many slipped through the cracks of an inefficient method of policing. With this policy came heightened increases in the application fees needed to process leave to remain documents, to naturalise and even register these applications. Another issue that came with this was the process of finding the necessary documents needed to prove a person had indeed been in the UK for the claimed amount of time; some were either inaccessible, too expensive, or had been discarded by the government and their various agencies. These stringent and hostile conditions did not only affect illegal immigrants but caught people like British Afro Caribbeans, that had been given the legal right to stay.
In 2013 the UK Home Office had received complaints that many of the Windrush generation and their offspring, were being treated as illegal immigrants and had been served with immediate deportation letters expressing they had no legal right to be in the UK. Meanwhile, the majority of the people receiving such letters had either been given leave to remain or had started processing their citizenship documents. It was made public knowledge and Members of Parliament and the Home Office were informed by various caseworkers of these happenings. People that were invited to the country and told they were British, were now being all of a sudden asked to leave the country and told the had no right to be British. These people had spent most of their lives in the UK, knew nothing else apart from life in the UK, some only had family in the UK so where would they go now? Many became stateless as they had no ties with their ancestral land, and lived in a state of limbo, awaiting news from the Home Office. Apart from this they faced, job losses, eviction from their homes, medical care under the NHS was being refused, many lost their ability to receive state-sponsored benefits, and access to a plethora of services they had when they were considered citizens. Then to add insult to injury, as many were in this state of limbo, unable to live their normal lives, some were forcibly put in detention centres under inhumane circumstances, while they waited for the rectification of their immigration status. Many were deported and many refused the right to return to the UK in cases where they had left on their British passport, with their whole life still in the UK and them in a country that they did not call home. This unfair treatment when reported fell on deaf ears for a long time, to the extent that several Caribbean countries and their leaders, asked to meet with the then Prime Minister of the UK Theresa May, who had indeed supported the Hostile Environment Policy and its measures, to discuss the fate of these British Caribbeans and the request was turned down.
The Windrush Scandal
In 2018 the public finally became aware of the injustices the Afro Caribbeans in the UK were facing, many of whom had been there their whole lives, had worked for the country, paid taxes, and contributed to the country’s overall growth for decades. It became a nationwide scandal, members of the community talked about it, the British Press covered it severely and members of Parliament advocated for a proper hearing of these victims, one of them being David Lammy, a British Afro- Caribbean MP under the Labour Party. The Home Office was accused of targeting the lowest hanging easy to pick fruit which in this case happened to be the Afro-Caribbean community, with their harsh and inefficient policies. The press covered many stories of these harsh policies adversely affecting afro-Caribbeans, for example in some cases, older members of the Windrush generation were asked to provide documents for each year they had been in the UK, some had been there over 50 years, tasks like this were seemingly impossible and these people were then threatened with deportation or detention if they did not have these documents. It was also exposed in the press that it was not only the older generation that had been affected by the measures, also their later generations, children and grandchildren that were born in the UK but unable to prove that their parents were in the UK legally when they were born. Some had their passports taken away from them and threatened with the same fate of detention and deportation.
The Home Office in the same year of 2018, released a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee, stating that the Hostile Environment Policy was unclear, inaccurate and untested; and that due to this the policy and system built on it had seen too many innocent people threatened with deportation because of it. The report alluded to there being a failure to properly understand the policy and its effects. When this information was brought to parliament, many MPs, the Prime Minister and Home Secretary claimed not to have known of these happenings and blamed it on system failure, chance, and mistakes. After rising public concerns a group of MPs wrote to Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, asking for a halt of the inhumane treatment and practices under the policy before the report was released; regardless the public, press and other Commonwealth countries had caught wind of these atrocities, and accused the Home Office of knowing about the problems caused by the policy and not doing anything to fix it. So, the question was whether or not it was a genuine mistake or done intentionally highlighting much deeper and systemic issues when it comes to the UK’s relationship with race and immigration. Many believe that to reach the required deportation targets, the policy was used as a covering to get rid of these easy targets being the Caribbean community of Britain. Amber Rudd was called on to resign as the rules her policy put in place caused all this devastation, and the press had released evidence showing she did know about the mess of this policy and encouraged it. On the other hand, if it was as she claimed a mistake, she then proved herself to be incompetent and did not know the happenings of her office, which led to the British Parliament, its Members and the Citizens of Britain being misled and deceived and so was in no way fit to run this office. On the 29th of April Rudd resigned and apologised for the horrific treatment of the Windrush generation and the general treatment of the afro-Caribbean community in the UK. With this, she promised some sort of compensation to those affected by the stringent and inefficient immigration policies and the processes for citizenship, like fees and language tests will no longer be required for this group of people. Theresa May also joined her to apologise to the Caribbean nations in the commonwealth and promised that all fees that would have come with proving continuity of residence in the UK and getting the required documentation for citizenship would be waived, when asked about wrongful deportation, she could not give too much information and claimed she was not sure who had and who had not been deported wrongfully.
Between the years 2018 and 2020, various measures were put in place by the new Home Secretary to effectively compensate the victims of the policy; from an easier and free procession of citizenship for children of the Windrush generation and their children, children that joined their parents in the UK before they were 18, and even the right to remain for those that were outside the UK. These measures were criticised by the MPs as they claimed it only focused on new applications and not those that had been deported, detained or had their applications denied by the home office, there was no measure for review or appeal of the decisions made prior. Many doubted the Home Office and still do not trust them, due to this scandal, what it meant was that no one was safe, especially in these black and brown communities, a new policy could be enacted that could change lives forever; if it happened once it can happen again. The Home Office assured it will not reoccur and that all those affected were being taken care of, but that was far from the truth as many Windrush victims were reported to be still in this state of limbo, financial distress, joblessness, homelessness and even out of school, as they awaited the decision of the Home Office on their immigration status. Upon all the schemes set up only, a few had received any assistance and it was recorded that the government had greatly understated the number of people that had fallen victim to the Hostile Environment Policy. More people than they planned for were now owed compensation and to deal with this in April 2020, the Windrush Taskforce was set up, not only dealing with compensations but applications of people who were wrongly classed as illegal immigrants. Many of these cases had already been incorrectly detained or deported, some to non-Caribbean countries that happen to be part of the commonwealth too, but in that case, the Home Office declined to look for these people. People that also came to the country under the 1948 Act, but one would imagine they were not looked for due to smaller numbers and less outrage.
When it comes to racism the UK tends to have historical amnesia, it is so bad that they do not see the current racism going on. The policy alone shows the systemic racism in the UK not only towards black people and people of colour but even European ethnic minorities. The policy was aimed at poorer people who happen to be ethnic minorities and non-whites in England. Apart from that making it a legal obligation for these landlords, employers, etc to police the immigration status of people, especially in a “white” country will put ethnic minorities at risk, as they are already seen as foreigners due to their race. A white person applying for welfare would not be asked to prove his or her citizenship, as they are seen as white and probably British, this will also apply to the eastern Europeans in the community, the people targeted the most will be people of colour, further fuelling racial divides and tension in the British community. Many were glad that the public coverage of this scandal brought about inquires into the home office and its internal institutional racism; many boards and committees reviewed some under parliament and some independent; these investigations were put in place to see whether the home office’s immigration policies were in line with equality laws. The reviews found that those affected were let down by systemic operational failings and the Home Office by ignoring the problem had demonstrated “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness”.
This does show you the true colours of the UK when in need they welcomed the Caribbeans with open arms, but when they no longer needed them, they were quick to throw them to the curb. A people that had given their all to the country and were then told by that country they are nothing, other members and communities of the commonwealth and former colonies who happened to be white and were covered by the same Acts, did not face the same injustices with the Hostile environment policy that the Carribeans faced. This racist hostile policy benefited and profited off the vulnerable people in society, completely dehumanising them and treating them as numbers, data, and targets, instead of people with emotion, their humanity was overlooked. The hostile environment policy has now become a part of the black story in the UK, especially amongst the Carribeans, invited labour migrants that were promised equal rights and citizenship who were then turned to and treated like illegal immigrants in a country they call home. The Hostile Environment Policy ended up becoming about the persecution of people that had the legal right to be in the UK and not illegal immigration. Now the biggest issue is compensation, especially for issues that cannot be quantified, the emotional, mental, and physical losses these victims faced, how does one quantify that? Because an apology and citizenship will not replace the years of mental and emotional stress these people faced and might still be facing. What is even more disrespectful is that the UK is still recruiting people from these countries to help bolster their economy and public services but yet treat them poorly, this goes beyond the right to citizenship, even basic human decency, and rights, a lot of these people are not afforded. This one-way relationship is disrespectful to people that have given their all for the UK, and the government should adjust the rules for the people they are so badly needing.
Belly Mujinga was a black African migrant that worked as a ticket inspector with the TfL (Transport for London), she was spat on in a racial attack by a man that claimed he had COVID 19, she died from COVID 19 and the transport police have refused to look into or investigate her death. This is a woman that gave the best of her years, her sweat, and blood to serving the United Kingdom, and even in death, she is ill-treated by the British system. It just shows how these migrants are seen as commodities only wanted to profit off of. The plight of the Windrush Generation, Brexit, and the UK’s general treatment of migrant workers shows, the extent of racism in the UK and the rocky relationship between race and immigration, and no matter how much mainstream politics looks to separate the two, evidence keeps showing that these issues go hand in hand.
