Windrush scandal caused by '30 years of racist immigration laws' - report

Source: The Guardian

Windrush scandal caused by ‘30 years of racist immigration laws’ – report

Legislation has been designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population, according to leaked government paper

Amelia Gentleman
@ameliagentleman
Sun 29 May 2022 17.15 BST
Last modified on Sun 29 May 2022 17.23 BST

The origins of the Windrush scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population, according to a leaked government report.

The stark conclusion was set out in a Home Office commissioned paper that officials have repeatedly tried to suppress over the past year.

The 52-page analysis by an unnamed historian, which has been seen by the Guardian, describes how “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function”, and sets out how this affected the laws passed in the postwar period.

It concludes the origins of the “deep-rooted racism of the Windrush Scandal” lie in the fact that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”.

-snip-

The history was commissioned by the Home Office as part of a commitment to educating civil servants about the causes of the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of people wrongly classified as illegal immigrants by the department. After the scandal, ministers agreed to teach all 35,000 Home Office employees about Britain’s colonial history and the history of black Britons.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/29/windrush-scandal-caused-by-30-years-of-racist-immigration-laws-report