Celebrating Windrush Day

Windrush Day was established as a celebration to honour the enormous contribution those who made that journey - and others who followed from elsewhere - have made to Britain.

The annual event was established in 2018 in the wake the Windrush scandal when many of those invited to Britain suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of immigration laws that, unbeknown to them, had changed around them.

Two years on from the inaugural Windrush Day, their fight for justice continues.

In the decades since the Windrush generation had arrived in Britain, immigration law had changed as successive governments sought to get tough on border control, culminating in then-Home Secretary Theresa May hostile environment policy that began in 2012.

Immigration law in the UK now require people to have documentation to work, rent a property or access benefits and NHS services, which left many of this generation in a perilous situation.

People with a right to live in the UK found themselves with no papers and no rights.

As a result, some lost their jobs, their homes, and, according to a report into the scandal published earlier this year, “their sense of identity and wellbeing”.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8779/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/12/windrush-generation-justioce

Thanks Lewisham Council

Exhibition of landing cards at Goldsmiths

https://www.gold.ac.uk/windrush/

To watch:

Sitting in Limbo

A shocking drama inspired by the Windrush scandal. After 50 years in the UK, Anthony Bryan is wrongfully detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p08g29ff/sitting-in-limbo

more reading:

https://www.faber.co.uk/9781783351848-the-windrush-betrayal.html