Explained: The Windrush Scandal
Who are the Windrush generation?
The Windrush generation refers to those people who arrived in Britain between 1948 and 1971, predominantly from the Caribbean. The name ‘Windrush’ references the ship ‘HMT Empire Windrush’, one of the first ships arriving in this period.
What is the Windrush Scandal?
In 2018, the Windrush Scandal broke. It was exposed that thousands of people from the Windrush generation, and in some cases their descendants, who had the legal right to live and work in the UK were left unable to demonstrate these rights. They were denied basic rights, such as the right to work, to rent their homes, to have a bank account and to healthcare. Many were detained or deported to countries they didn’t know and where they had no family or friends. Others faced huge financial hardship and lost their homes because of the wrongdoings of the Home Office.
Why did it happen?
The Windrush Scandal was a culmination of 30 years of racist immigration legislation that attempted to reduce the number of black and brown people living in the UK.
Coming from the British Commonwealth, the Windrush generation arrived as British subjects. This means that they automatically had the right to live and work in Britain.
However, immigration and citizenship laws after 1948 changed the way we defined nationality and citizenship, with disastrous implications for the Windrush generation. According to the 1981 British Nationality Act, to be British you had to acquire citizenship at birth through a parent who was a UK citizen or ‘settled’ in the UK. Otherwise, you had to live and work in the UK and apply for ‘naturalisation’. The Home Office failed to recognise how these changes could have devastating consequences for black and brown communities.
Fast forward to 2012, the Home Office introduced a policy called the ‘Hostile Environment’. Through this policy, millions of people became border guards overnight. Landlords had to start checking their tenants’ right to be in the UK before they could rent their home; employers had to do the same with their workforce, before hiring or renewing someone’s contract; the NHS had to charge for healthcare if their patients couldn’t prove their right to live in the UK; councils across the UK would not offer support to people facing homelessness unless they could prove they had a right to be here.
Out of the blue, people in the Windrush generation were being told they were an “illegal immigrant” and required to prove their right to remain in the UK.
The Home Office places the burden of proof on the individual. However, many of the Windrush generation arrived as children on their parent’s passports. What’s more, the Home Office themselves destroyed thousands of landing cards and other records. This meant that, suddenly, thousands of people were denied their legal right to live in the UK.
What did Praxis do?
Praxis was at the forefront of uncovering the Windrush Scandal. Our experience, expertise and work on the frontline supporting destitute and homeless migrants led us to identify a trend whereby people who had lawfully lived and worked in the UK for decades were being “locked out”, denied access to employment, accommodation, welfare benefits and healthcare on the basis that they couldn’t prove their residence status. We supported victims of the Hostile Environment policy to fight for their rights and helped raise awareness through the media.
“Mostly people assumed these were weird anomalies where something very specific had gone wrong. I realised how rapidly the problem was growing when the charity Praxis said it was seeing more and more cases every year.”
We introduced Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman and journalists from many more outlets - including BBC, the Daily Mail, Channel 4, ITV and more - to some of the people who had been affected by what is now known as the Windrush Scandal. Among those people was Sylvester Marshall (pictured right).
Once public, the injustices Sylvester had faced attracted large-scale attention and the Windrush Scandal was brought into the political domain. Jeremy Corbyn MP, and then the leader of the opposition, raised Sylvester’s story twice in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Question Time.
For months, we kept on advocating for the victims of the Scandal, asking the Home Office to put in place a fast, fair and free system so they could obtain the vital papers they needed to get their lives back on track. After months of pressure, the government put in place the system we were asking for.
The Home Office created a task force dedicated to Windrush cases. As of 2024, more than 16,000 people have gained vital documents through it. There is poor data on the number of people affected by the Scandal, but it is likely to be a minimum of 57,500 people and their children and could be significantly higher. What these figures show us is that the task force has barely scratched the surface, and people affected are still forced into the shadow, missing out on vital support.
Still waiting for justice
In 2023 it became clear the Windrush compensation scheme, set up to provide financial compensation to those harmed by the Home Office in the Windrush Scandal, was failing. The Praxis frontline team was still seeing people barred from accessing work because of “the wrong paperwork”.
Others have been made destitute after years of financial hardship and no compensation. In fact, when we asked people who were affected only three out of 20 victims of the Windrush Scandal surveyed had received compensation four years after the compensation scheme was set up.
On top of this, in June 2023 the unit tasked with reforming the Home Office after the Windrush Scandal was quietly disbanded by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman. This group worked on implementing the recommendations from the damning report “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” by Wendy Williams.
Fitzroy’s story
Fitzroy came to the UK in 1980 from Antigua to join his family. Yet after living and working here for decades, he struggled to find new employment when he lost his job because he couldn’t prove that he had a right to live and work in the UK. A few months later, his benefits were also stopped.
Left with no support, Fitzroy became one of the thousands of victims of the Windrush Scandal. He became homeless, and was forced into sofa surfing, and even living on the streets at times, for more than a decade. During this time he was the main carer for his young daughter after his daughter’s mother became severely ill.
In 2023 he was still waiting for compensation.
For years the Home Office and its ever-growing number of Home Secretaries have talked about righting the wrongs of the Scandal they created. They recognise they’ve made a huge, unforgivable mistake.
Yet the very same policies that the Windrush Scandal originated from are still there – a hostile environment set up to make life incredibly difficult for people who have made the UK their home. People are still affected by the Windrush Scandal: they are still forced into homelessness, unable to get the care they need.
The Government should do the right thing – instead of walking back from its commitments, it should dismantle the hostile environment and start treating people with decency, respect and kindness, regardless of where they or their parents were born.