Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Friday, March 20, 2020

British racism exposed by Windrush scandal

Although my last post was a joke, and even though coronavirus is very serious and game-changing, our obsession with coronavirus should not divert our attention from other important matters. The independent review of the Windrush scandal was published yesterday. Let's not forget that people were wrongly detained, deported and lost access to benefits because they could not prove they had a right (which they did have, to spell it out) to live here. For some reason the review seems to stop short of saying the Home Office was racist, instead saying it demonstrated "ignorance and thoughtlessness" over race and that the failings were "consistent with some elements of the definition of institutional racism". The government is still racist, as despite Priti Patel's apology, some ministers and officials still fail to accept the extent of the injustice to people who were made to feel like criminals. Britain must stop being a hostile environment to immigrants.