The Windrush Generation

The Windrush Generation - 70 years on

HMT Empire Windrush, a chartered passenger vessel  is noted for and now synonymous with the first post WWII immigration to Britain of West Indian people.The vessel docked  at Tilbury,in London on 22 June 1948,on as sunny a day as the weather back home.

As the 492 men from Jamaica and Trinidad (and several stowaways) disembarked taking their first steps in Commonwealth Britain, they did not know what their future would be 70 years later. 

They had paid £28.00 in hard earned money for their passage and made their way to the unknown, what they hoped would be a brighter future.

                                                    

It was not the only ship that brought migrants from the West Indies to UK. 

It was a way to recruit cheap manual labour from the Commonwealth to cover employment shortages in state run services, like British Rail. 

Some people who are now called the Windrush geration, the descendants of the early migrants,would be able to relate all the trials and tribulations they may have gone through. But in the end have come out just as equal or a few better than anyone else except the "true blue" Eton educated class.                      

Windrush generation migrants were entitled to be in the UK. Like most migrants they worked hard,saved up money,bought dilapidated houses, renovated them and made them habitable. They went back and forth for holidays in the Caribbean and also underwent hardship in the 1980's due to the police "policy of stop and search" due to a rise in crime,which was rightly or wrongly attributed to them. Xenophobia was one way to control their ambitions in England. Another method of thwarting their "happy go lucky" lifestyle,their love of their Caribbean cultural heritage ,food,music and dance,was penalising them for being "more British than the British" because they showed an inclination to adjust,adept and adopt to their new home in Britain. 

In this process many migrants renewed their passports of their home countries but indolently failed to secure the documentation to prove their residency status in Britain by obtaining Home Office documentation,which by default they took for granted.

The only proof of their entitlement for residence in Britain on return from holidays abroad was the Immigration exit and entry stamp on their passports. In the late 1990's it was no longer a requirement to fill in an Disembarkation Immigration Card, on a Landing Card on return. A decision by the Home Office was taken to destroy the Landing Card documentation.

Then started the problem for the Windrush immigrants. But it was a low key affair and not a full blown issue. It was only late last year 2017 that there was further tightening of rules on Immigration by the Office of Homeland Security, a branch of the Home Office. In this process many faced problems to access healthcare and registration with GP's as well as other State services being denied particularly after visits abroad were refused NHS treatment if they could not prove their nationality. 
                                             
Why the hullabaloo now?

A West Indian immigrant's son, David Lammy,  a constituency M.P. for Tottenham,in North London had brought it out into the open in Parliament some days ago (23 April 2018)  that people who had arrived in the U.K. before 1973 were automatically granted "indefinite leave to remain," yet the Home Office did not keep a record of those allowed to stay, or they had destroyed (shredded) any documentation conferring their status,some years ago.
                                                         

                
The Home Office is facing fresh anger over the Windrush scandal after heartbreaking new cases emerged, as raised by MP Lammy, in the House of Commons,to the chagrin of MP's and the public.

He stated that "I have a man who arrived as a boy from Jamaica in 1964, aged 6 years. He is very worried he faces removal from the U.K. despite having official paperwork dating back decades."

There were 12,800 cases of enforced returns of immigrants who could not prove their status in 2017. Many were assisted returns to the Caribbean with the help of International Office of Migrants (IOM).

Lammy, M.P. was inflamed  with many complaints coming to light. He went on to say: "I am disgusted and appalled by the case of his constituents." 

He continued on Twitter: "My parents came here as citizens, now the Windrush generation are suffering inhumane treatment at the hands of the Home Office."

Many immigrants are now British Citizens 

While many of those who arrived have taken British citizenship or have official documents proving their status, many others have struggled to source paperwork demonstrating they are lawfully resident.                   

Home Secretary, Hon .Amber Rudd tried to calm the furore by making an apology in the Commons and announcing an emergency package of measures designed to resolve the crisis.

Shadow Home Secretary,Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington  , demanded in the House that anyone who misleads Parliament is expected to resign. Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn followed stating: "The Home Secretary had lost her grip on her department by the inaccurate of her statements."

                                                            

Under the plan 1000's who arrived from the Commonwealth will be offered a chance to obtain British citizenship free of charge and without the requirement to take an English Language test.
Reuters quoted the Home Secretary as stating  that she "deeply regretted failing to realise there was a widespread problem that some Caribbean immigrants who have lived legally in Britain for decades were being labelled illegal immigrants."

The Home Secretary of H.M. Government is a tough and thankless job,.David Blunkett,Labour (resigned 15 Dec. 2004) and Charles Clark,Labour was dismissed as Home Secretary in 2006.

The Home Office covers everything from police,prisons,immigration to homeland security,counter terrorism and civil emergencies.

The Guardian said:"The job of Home Secretary is often described as a poisoned chalice,sometimes little more than a year passes before its latest occupant slinks out of Queen Anne's Gate." 

The anomaly 

It is not the children born to the original West Indies immigrants, who are more fluent in English than some British, but the migrants from the European Union who have come in drones and are taking the very jobs of the British,who are not required to take the English Language Test.

Over the years since Britain joined the EU in 1979,hundreds of thousands from the Continent have come in search of jobs, driving many West Indians out of their jobs at Rail stations,in the NHS and other jobs..EU citizens we're told are creaming the jobs market, some working for less wages than offered to locals or those from the Commonwealth. Strange as it seems, the children of the Windrush Generation have been recruited in H.M. Forces and have done well in different occupations for themselves and for Britain. 

To little, too late

Anticipating this hue and cry a month ago, the Government,has brought in the minimum wage and the minimum living wage into law, but the EU immigrants know how to get round this directive.                                 

 The Windrush scandal is news, but my Windrush Jamaican plumber is minting money. He has City and Guilds qualification and his work is in great demand. The second and third generation of Windrush immigrants speak English better than the cockneys,their dress sense is exemplary, and their aspirations as lawyers,engineers, doctors,accountants, and professionals,is well beyond expectation.

Gone are the days when they lived in the ghettos of Brixton and Birmingham. They now command properties in the leafy suburbs of most cities.

I won't be surprised to see the office of the next Mayor of London being taken by a West Indian, in due course. 

Victor Cherubim