Windrush scandal

The Windrush scandal refers to a number of United Kingdom (UK) governmental policies of the 1960s through the 2010s that were motivated by racism. The legislation was aimed at immigrants who arrived in the United Kingdom (UK) from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971. The immigrants traveled from British colonies and were legal citizens of the UK, but lawmakers later targeted them for deportation and detention. Many lived in limbo without national health care or other benefits. Revelations about these policies and their results were uncovered in 2018, and the scandal resulted in the resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

The era of large-scale immigration ended with the 1971 Immigration Act, which permitted Commonwealth citizens to remain in the UK indefinitely. Many immigrants did not have documentation of their arrival decades earlier; children did not have their own passports because they traveled on their parents’ documents. The estimated fifty thousand people affected by the changes in policy in the UK have been called the Windrush generation.

Background

When World War II ended in 1945, large areas of the UK were in ruins. Many buildings had been bombed by the Germans, and many of the nation’s men had been killed or wounded in battle. The UK was facing a labor shortage, so it extended invitations to residents of the British Colonies in the Caribbean. These included Jamaica (1707–1962); the Bahamas (1718–1973; Barbados (1625–1966); British Guiana (1814–1966; British Honduras (1862–1964); Trinidad and Tobago (1802–1962); the Windward Islands (1833–1960); and the Leeward Islands (1671– 958).

Many of those who accepted the invitation to move to the UK arrived by ship. The first ship bringing immigrants to the UK was the MV Empire Windrush, which arrived in Tilbury, Essex, on June 22, 1948. It delivered almost five hundred immigrants from Jamaica to the UK, including many children who traveled on their parents’ passports and therefore were not recorded when they arrived.

British citizenship of inhabitants of British Colonies was presumed but not stated in law in the early twentieth century. It was first defined in the British Nationality Act of 1948. This act stated that people born in British colonies and in the UK were legally British citizens, specifically Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC). All citizens of the UK and British Colonies were also British subjects, as were Citizens of Independent Commonwealth Countries (CICC or Commonwealth citizens). All had equal rights in Britain, which included the right to work, to vote, to obtain welfare benefits, eligibility for Parliamentary office, and unrestricted entry and settlement. The new immigrants from the Caribbean colonies and others within the Commonwealth of Nations had no real barriers to entry to the UK because they were citizens under the Nationality Act.

Very quickly, however, other legislation began to eat away at the rights and status granted in the 1948 law. The following year, the Home Office, which is in charge of immigration and other concerns, reinstituted a requirement for documents proving would-be immigrants were British subjects. Some officials worked with authorities in other countries to curtail the provision of documents needed by British subjects who wished to emigrate from Africa, South Asia, and the West Indies. In 1962, legislation limited citizenship based on passport origin, and in 1968, parentage became a determining factor. In most cases, the individuals seeking entry into the UK were people of color.

The Immigration Act of 1971 gave citizens of the Commonwealth who were at that time living in the UK the freedom to remain indefinitely. Many of the Windrush generation believed that they were citizens of the UK because they came from British Colonies and the 1948 British Nationality Act had stated as much. However, though they paid taxes and performed other duties as if they were citizens and had lived in the UK for decades, the law no longer regarded them as British citizens unless they had the correct documentation. This misunderstanding of the change in their status led most to continue living in the UK without formally pursuing citizenship. As they aged and reached retirement, some of them having lived in the UK for half a century, they began to learn that the government had amended the legislation allowing them to stay. As of 2020, an estimated fifty thousand immigrants were in legal limbo regarding their status in the UK.

Overview

Frequent amendments to the nationality law continued to chip away at the foundation of nationality, giving officials more leeway to deprive individuals of citizenship. The British Nationality Act of 1981 laid out the terms under which citizenship could be revoked from those who were not citizens by birth. Such situations could include individuals who were disloyal to the Crown, had communications or business dealings with enemies of the UK, or had been sentenced to jail for twelve months or longer in other countries for crimes. From about 2010, deprivation of citizenship increased in frequency. This increase coincided with new rules established by the Home Office.

In 2012 Home Secretary Theresa May worked to create unambiguous new rules requiring employers, health services, and landlords to obtain proof of people’s immigration status. These immigration reforms, as she described them, burdened ordinary citizens with a policing role and were later determined to have created a hostile environment in the nation. Many of the records from the post-war years had been lost or destroyed, however, and some arrivals were not documented at all. Children who arrived with their parents were not recorded as entering the UK because they traveled on their parents’ passports, so when they grew up, they had absolutely no documentation of their legal arrival. As these immigrants were told to produce documents that simply did not exist, many began to lose jobs, homes, and access to much needed health care.

An investigation found that some resident Commonwealth citizens were denied housing simply based on their national origin, while others were detained. At least eighty-three and possibly many more were deported. The revelation that the Windrush generation was being denied the rights accorded to citizens of the UK after living virtually their entire lives in the nation raised a public outcry in 2018.

In April 2018, Prime Minister May spoke in London at a summit of Commonwealth heads of government. She apologized to the twelve Caribbean nations represented there for the anxiety the government had caused. May, who was prime minister from 2016 to 2019, announced that an inquiry would investigate the scandal. When it released its report in March 2020, it offered a number of recommendations, including the appointment of a migrants commissioner and the creation of a race advisory board. A Windrush Compensation Scheme, which was established in 2019, received 1,275 applications for financial compensation by March 2020.

Bibliography

“Britain and the Caribbean.” BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjyqtfr/revision/1. Accessed 14 July 2020.

Czaika, Mathias, and Hein de Haas. “Determinants of Migration to the UK.” The Migration Observatory, 11 Oct. 2017, migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/determinants-of-migration-to-the-uk/. Accessed 14 July 2020.

Gentleman, Amelia. “Windrush U-Turn Is Welcome, but May’s Policy Was Just Cruel.” The Guardian, 16 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/16/windrush-u-turn-welcome-but-theresa-may-policy-cruel. Accessed 14 July 2020.

Kirkup, James, and Robert Winnett. “Theresa May Interview: ‘We’re Going to Give Illegal Migrants a Really Hostile Reception.” Telegraph, 25 May 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/theresa-may-interview-going-give-illegal-migrants-really-hostile/. Accessed 14 July 2020.

Lidher, Sundeep. “British Citizenship and the Windrush Generation.” Runnymede Trust, 20 Apr. 2018, www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/british-citizenship-and-the-windrush-generation#:~:text=Under%20the%20Act%20of%201948,terms%2C%20one%20and%20the%20same.&text=The%20Act%20recognised%20Citizens%20of,the%20United%20Kingdom%20and%20Colonies.. Accessed 14 July 2020.

Lowe, Keith. “Five Times Immigration Changed the UK.” BBC, 20 Jan. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51134644. Accessed 13 July 2020.

“The UK’s Windrush Generation: What’s the Scandal About?” Al Jazeera, 18 Apr. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/uk-windrush-generation-scandal-180418074648878.html. Accessed 14 July 2020.

“Windrush Generation: Who Are They and Why Are They Facing Problems?” BBC, 24 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241. Accessed 13 July 2020.

“Windrush Scandal: Home Office Showed ‘Ignorance’ of Race.” BBC, 19 Mar. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51961933. Accessed 13 July 2020.

Yeo, Colin. “The Rise of Modern Banishment: Deprivation and Nullification of British Citizenship.” Free Movement, 24 Nov. 2017, www.freemovement.org.uk/rise-modern-banishment-deprivation-nullification-british-citizenship/. Accessed 14 July 2020.