Windrush failures

mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
edited April 2018 in Hell
Words fail at the levels of immoral ineptitude whereby people who have an ongoing right to be in the UK - a place where they've worked, paid taxes and in some cases have retired and are receiving state pension - but are suddenly being sent "back home" to places they don't know, haven't visited etc.

We don't know what possessed Theresa "send 'em home" May to set in motion the policies that got us to do this point. It is said that she had been warned that the tough stance on immigration would have a serious effect on migrant communities that kept this country afloat in the 1960s and 1970s.

It might be that she simply doesn't care. She has the self awareness to know which side her bread is buttered and knows whose support she really needs to stay in power. Maybe she's counted the votes she'd lose and has weighed them against the UKIP vote.

It might be that she's totally incompetent. That she didn't listen when people said that this was an inevitable result of the hard-line policies, but she didn't listen. Didn't care. Didn't believe the warnings.

It might be that she had too much faith in "the system" being able to identify and solve the problems. Which, in fairness, one might think it should be able to do.

I mean - how does one get to the point of having a state pension and the system then trying to make out that you are not entitled to NHS care?

Either way, you'd think with her direct responsibility for immigration policy and her current premiership overseeing the chaos that the natural thing would be to resign.

But she won't, will she?
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Comments

  • SignallerSignaller Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    I don't suppose anyone in the political classes even contemplated the possibility that people could live here for that length of time without acquiring some sort of paper trail.

    "Out of touch" is an overworked phrase.
  • I'm reading an excellent (but astonishing) book at the moment called "The Blunders of our Governments". That capacity of the British civil service and successive government ministers to be out of touch is precisely one of the things the authors call out in the many cock ups they write about. If they ever update the book again, the Windrush failures will definitely feature, I should think.
  • I suspect I'm going to be caught up in this mess, whether I was born here and can trace my family back to Domesday or not - because my family served overseas and records were destroyed. My daughter's British passport was granted in 2012 because she was born here and has an EU citizen father - I caused her problems. It's a pretty wide ranging mess.
  • When the government caves in to the pressure to gather in the voters for fascists and racists then insanity is the almost certain result. Windrush (and subsequent waves and trickles of immigration from the Commonwealth and elsewhere) shows very clearly how important immigration is to the economy and prosperity of this nation (not just financially, a big boost to our culture and society). The Tories (and, to an extent Labour as well) brought into the lie peddled by the racists and fascists that there is a problem with immigration - leading to the development of a policy of making this country a hostile environment for immigrants, rather than the good sense policy of making this country a welcoming place for immigrants. A policy that May formalised, but was probably an aim before her stay in the Home Office big seat. We've seen over the last few years example after example of idiocy where people who should be welcome have been deported, or faced deportation, with increasing insanity where the government is seeking to chuck out European immigrants and now the descendants of those who came from elsewhere in the Commonwealth a generation or more ago. And, of course, those lies about immigration fueled the national suicide that is Brexit.

    Our government has a lot to answer for over immigration. The current Windrush fiasco is but the latest of a series of diabolical steps, that will eventually lead this country to disaster. And, forcing May and the Tories out won't even make much difference as long as the people swallow whole sale a bunch of lies and the nation moves away from British values towards something closer to the attitudes of 1930s Germany that millions died to put an end to. We need political leaders who will stand and lead us to where we should be going, not time servers who will do whatever is popular enough to make sure they retain their over-paid seats in Westminster..
  • For anyone wondering how it starts, it starts like this.
  • It started a while back, this is the point where the fact that it's started becomes more obvious to the population at large. Like most things, the further we get from the start the harder it becomes to change course. The evil bastards who have manipulated public opinion with lies and misinformation have been at it for decades, it's been 10 years (at least) since the Tories adopted the policy of developing a hostile environment for immigrants, which they could enact in 2010 leading directly to where we are now with Windrush (and countless others). And, those evil bastards aren't as easy to get rid of as Tory MPs. There's no election for us to choose someone else to represent us. Self appointed opinion leaders who find it easy to fill column inches of newspapers (often because they, or their pals who share their evil viewpoints, own them) and manage to get on TV far too often are not subject to the ballot box.
  • The EU are interested, of course. It could all happen again with EU citizens living here. There was a very interesting woman, I didn't catch where she comes from in terms of the EU officialdom, interviewed on Good Morning Scotland today, and she was asked if she thinks the Home Office is fit for purpose. She didn't say a direct "No", but she did say that it was hard to believe the inhumanity of a government department which would deliberately try to create a hostile environment. Her point was that the Home Office forgets that they are dealing with human beings.
  • Not just the Home Office, of course. When the government as a whole is marked by a lack of recognition that their policies affect human beings then inhumanity is bound to happen. We've seen it with welfare - introduction of sanctioning, then a change to universal credit practically designed to make it as hard as possible to claim, and as easy a possible to make a small mistake and face being sanctioned. All designed to reduce the amount of our money the government passes on to those in need so that they can use that to cut the tax for the rish and pay small fortunes to their pals for services we don't need.
  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    It might be that she's totally incompetent.
    That isn't the question. The question is whether she is only incompetent.
    Not just the Home Office, of course. When the government as a whole is marked by a lack of recognition that their policies affect human beings then inhumanity is bound to happen. We've seen it with welfare - introduction of sanctioning, then a change to universal credit practically designed to make it as hard as possible to claim, and as easy a possible to make a small mistake and face being sanctioned. All designed to reduce the amount of our money the government passes on to those in need so that they can use that to cut the tax for the rish and pay small fortunes to their pals for services we don't need.
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.



  • sionisais wrote: »
    That website is designed to beat any semblance of giving a shit that might exist. Exhausting just giving a quick run through.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.

  • Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.

    My sense is more of people beaten down by targets, performance management and all the other tools of authoritarian capitalism imported into the public sphere.
  • This is a terrible story and a terrible situation. It really makes me wish for the days when ministers of the crown were beheaded and their heads displayed on pikes. Those poor people who suffered this injustice, I feel for them and their families.
  • Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.

    Pretty much every job that's been 'outsourced'.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    This is a terrible story and a terrible situation. It really makes me wish for the days when ministers of the crown were beheaded and their heads displayed on pikes. Those poor people who suffered this injustice, I feel for them and their families.

    At the very least, I long for the times when ministers who oversaw blatent cockups would immediately resign. The fact the they are blaming civil servants is appaling. They have responsibility for their departments.

    Actually, I long for the the time when ministers considered themselves servants of the people, not above the criminal and moral law.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.
    The subject of this very thread. The decisions were made by a few, but the complicity is shared by many. Unless you wish to say the entire Home Office is explicitly racist.

    You’ve never come across a colleague that was just there for the pay-cheque? In 26 years?
    I have witnessed a situation in which Cog A said X could not happen before Y and Cog B said Y could not happen without X being done first. Both were doing their jobs as the jobs were described, but neither were properly serving their client. Neither were going to give until the issue was taken to a supervisor. Who also said it couldn't be done and then eventually relented. Reluctantly.
    I could list a multitude of similar situations in which people Did Their Job with no thought to how it actually worked.
    If you truly did not witness anything like that in 26 years, I am amazed. But then I never did have the opportunity to interact with the Crown Unicorn Bureau.

    Sarcasm aside, that is how large entities work. There will be rules and people who follow them with no thought to what it means outside of their little part of the machine.
  • I know "just following orders" isn't a strong defence against wrong doing, but if civil servants are being thrown under the bus for doing what ministers told them to do then it seems a morally decent defence if those who gave the orders are refusing to take the blame.
  • I know "just following orders" isn't a strong defence against wrong doing, but if civil servants are being thrown under the bus for doing what ministers told them to do then it seems a morally decent defence if those who gave the orders are refusing to take the blame.
    Those who gave the orders have the lion's share of the blame.
    I am not throwing the rank and file under the bus. I think the instigators need to be stood in front of the metaphorical wall. With blindfold and cigarette, if they choose. Yes, the ministers need to be accountable, I am not trying to transfer the main blame.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    Problem here is that if the civil servants hadn't insisted that everyone who came as a migrant needed the same level of proof about their status (ie two pieces of evidence for each year of residence, or whatever it is) presumably there could have been a judicial review about unfairness.

    The problem is in the way that the policy has been designed. Presumably it could have been written so that people who had been here long enough (for example) to earn a full state pension (which I think is 40 years) would have been judged to have earned citizenship and residency. Presumably they could have sent in place various other protections for migrants from the 1960s and 1970s and their descendants.

    But as they didn't, I'm guessing that the people making frontline decisions on immigration cases have no leeway to allow any difference in the acceptable paperwork needed for someone who has been here 8 years or 50.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited April 2018
    AFAIUI, their existing protections were declared null and void in 2014, when one T. May was Home Secretary.

    That's the real scandal. Up to that point, whether the boarding cards existed or not didn't matter, because people didn't need them. But once they'd been destroyed, it only took an arbitrary change in the rules to screw everything up.
  • I'd be surprised if when the decision to destroy the landing cards was made (apparently under a Labour government) if anyone expected that within a few years a new government would enact a policy of creating a hostile environment for immigrants, even for recent immigrants let alone those who had been here for decades. It's difficult to anticipate idiocy. Well, we can readily anticipate idiocy, it's the particular form of that which is difficult to anticipate.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    The cards seem to me to be a bit of a red herring. The point was that they were destroyed because they weren't needed. Which they weren't until the policy changed at which point they became a critical piece of information that no longer existed.
  • I am wary of calling this a Windrush problem - as I think it allows the governemnt to deny the extent of what they have been doing. I actually think the rot set in when the government decided it had the right to remove British Citizenship from individuals with dual citizenship. The reason being they were convicted of terrorist offenses or *suspected* of terrorist offences.

    It created two tier citizenship - its illegal under international law to make someone stateless, so it could only ever be directed at dual citizens.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    And what is more alot is being made of the contribution these folk have made to our society, which should be acknowledged of course, but actually the point is that as former subjects who came over when they did - they have the right to remain. Regardless if they spent the intervening 40 years doing bugger all of any practical use. We asked them to come, having exploited their countries and their people for centuries - we don't get to chuck them back because we've decided they are no longer useful. It is an absolute fucking disgrace, it makes me ashamed of my country.
  • I heard a little bit about what happened when the first few thousand people arrived on the ships from the Carribbean.

    According to the account I heard, originally British subjects were entitled to come and work in the UK, a rule that was being examined in the 1940s when the cost of international travel went down so far that it actually became affordable for non-white people to consider coming to Blighty. Prior to that few did because of the enormous cost.

    Anyway, apparently there was some talk of not allowing the ships to dock. It turned out that this wasn't legally possible because of the status of the people. In the end it was thought not to be worth the effort to change the law to keep the migrant out, because (of all things) it was thought that British weather would force them back to sunnier climes.

    AFAIU, until the law was changed later, British subjects in the Empire could come and work in the UK. And as laws can't normally be retrospective anyway, anyone who was here from before the rule changes were entitled to the same ongoing rights.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    I am wary of calling this a Windrush problem - as I think it allows the governemnt to deny the extent of what they have been doing.
    It is a greater problem. However, referencing Windrush makes sense, because it is an obvious miscarriage affecting a large group. It is simple and straightforward.

  • And what is more alot is being made of the contribution these folk have made to our society, which should be acknowledged of course
    While we're at it, we should acknowledge the contribution of all migrants to our society - whether recent arrivals from Eastern Europe who harvest our crops and care for our elderly, the post war arrivals from our former colonies who rebuilt our cities from the devastation of war, or the Angles and Saxons and Danes who arrived here centuries ago and gave us our language and Parliamentary system.
  • or the Angles and Saxons and Danes who arrived here centuries ago and gave us our language and Parliamentary system.
    And slavery and colonialism and oppression...
    I think the point should more be that everyone was an immigrant.

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.
    The subject of this very thread. The decisions were made by a few, but the complicity is shared by many. Unless you wish to say the entire Home Office is explicitly racist.

    You’ve never come across a colleague that was just there for the pay-cheque? In 26 years?
    Nope.

    Yes, I have been fortunate. I'm sure there are such people. But the attitude that says 'you are a government worker therefore you are just a cog' is worse.



  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    It might be that she's totally incompetent.
    That isn't the question. The question is whether she is only incompetent.
    Is there really a question about that? AFAICT, on almost every political issue, she either has no discernible opinion (education, healthcare, economics), starts something and then gives up (industrial strategy, board representation for workers), or believes whatever is most expedient at the time within the narrow confines of intra-Tory politics (most of Brexit). The one exception to all this is immigration - the one and only thing she has consistently believed in from the Home Office to Downing Street is Being Nasty To Immigrants.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    or the Angles and Saxons and Danes who arrived here centuries ago and gave us our language and Parliamentary system.
    And slavery and colonialism and oppression...
    Well, the Romans also introduced those. But, what have immigrants ever done for us?
  • Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The government should work for the people. One major issue is that government workers do not see it this way. For most it is a job in and by itself. Just as with any other large entity, the cogs spin as they are guided, with no apparent awareness of the purported purpose of the machine they are in.

    Evidence for that? I've been a civil servant for 26 years and not come across any colleague who fits that description.
    The subject of this very thread. The decisions were made by a few, but the complicity is shared by many. Unless you wish to say the entire Home Office is explicitly racist.

    You’ve never come across a colleague that was just there for the pay-cheque? In 26 years?
    Nope.

    Yes, I have been fortunate. I'm sure there are such people. But the attitude that says 'you are a government worker therefore you are just a cog' is worse.
    'just a cog' overstates my position a bit. But people who just do their job are the rule, not the exception. It is the nature of large entities.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    sionisais wrote: »
    That website is designed to beat any semblance of giving a shit that might exist. Exhausting just giving a quick run through.

    If you're just going to project your own prejudices onto information from a former civil servant who did and still does give a shit you're hardly qualified to comment.
  • I don't care what you think about the merits of immigration, whether there's too much or too little, whether Polish plumbers are ruining your way of life or whatever. We can talk about those things, and about how much immigration we should have in the future, but none of that alters the way that we should treat people who are already here.

    Deporting someone who has lived in the UK their whole working life, because you've just discovered that someone made a clerical error in 1967 is a complete nonsense. It is the behaviour of people with neither honour nor scruples.

  • I don't care what you think about the merits of immigration, whether there's too much or too little, whether Polish plumbers are ruining your way of life or whatever. We can talk about those things, and about how much immigration we should have in the future, but none of that alters the way that we should treat people who are already here.

    Deporting someone who has lived in the UK their whole working life, because you've just discovered that someone made a clerical error in 1967 is a complete nonsense. It is the behaviour of people with neither honour nor scruples.

    Couldn't agree more. None of this is a matter of a clerical error. It was a decision made a long way up the ladder (maybe not by a minister) but the minister is there to carry the can.

    When it comes to policy civil servants can only advise. They cannot decide. Scrapping the only records legitimising a persons arrival and presence in the UK is a political decision. Civil servants advised against the 2014 rule changes and also destroying the cards but the rules were changed and the cards were destroyed anyway. All to satisfy the xenophobic end of public opinion and the Daily Mail and its pals.
  • Can I just point out, again, that this is far wider than just Windrush. Without going into detail, people are having to prove their right to remain in the UK based on their parents' origins, which can be complicated if birth certificates were blown up.
  • Can I just point out, again, that this is far wider than just Windrush. Without going into detail, people are having to prove their right to remain in the UK based on their parents' origins, which can be complicated if birth certificates were blown up.

    Don't I know it. Our youngest was born in Malta (in 1996) and to make things even more interesting Mrs Sioni was also born in Malta. We had to provide our marriage certificate and both birth certificates for his first adult passport.

    Still, if we leave the EU it looks like he can get Maltese citizenship (but not nationality).
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    Can I just point out, again, that this is far wider than just Windrush. Without going into detail, people are having to prove their right to remain in the UK based on their parents' origins, which can be complicated if birth certificates were blown up.

    Agreed. I would take the view that if you have lived openly in a country for an extended period of time under the good faith belief that you had the permanent right to live there, you should be grandfathered in, regardless of the technicalities. The idea that we are even asking people who have been here most of their lives to prove their right to be here is absurd.

    If you've been staying under the radar, working in the cash economy, and trying to avoid official notice, that might be a different matter, but not for people who are just living normal lives and trying to follow the rules.
  • My father was born in Egypt - son of serving officer in British Army - all Cairo records destroyed in 1941 with the advance of Rommel. He doesn't have a birth certificate. My mother may well have been born within the sound of Bow Bells, but her birth certificate was blown up in the WW2 London bombings. Both her parents were born in India, born of parents serving in the Indian Civil Service - good Scots families that can be traced back a long way. Me, I may well have problems with right to remain, even if I can trace my father's family back to Domesday. Those of you have met me are going to be pissing themselves, because I suspect I'll pass as English when I have to deal with this face to face.
  • sionisais wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    sionisais wrote: »
    That website is designed to beat any semblance of giving a shit that might exist. Exhausting just giving a quick run through.

    If you're just going to project your own prejudices onto information from a former civil servant who did and still does give a shit you're hardly qualified to comment.
    prejudice
    preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

    My statements on civil service and other large entities are based on both actual experience and reason.

    Admittedly though, I took a cursory look at your link and did prejudge it. My apologies for that.

    So I went back and read the section on Speaking Truth to Power. And, though I will admit it is not designed to be so, I still find it massively disheartening. The outline of the issues of speaking to power is well done. The solutions seem reasonable, if you have never actually had a chance to see them in operation. The circumstances that need to occur for a positive result are rare. Everything has to be just right or the speaker gets punished and/or ignored. I've seen rare groups/departments that were truly focused on doing what is best for the public. In the Windrush document destruction, people did speak up. And it changed nothing.

    I've started reading the bits on recruiting. So far, the advice is solid. But it will also not happen. Not at enough of a scale to make a difference. It is all the more depressing a read because it is futile.
  • Can I just point out, again, that this is far wider than just Windrush. Without going into detail, people are having to prove their right to remain in the UK based on their parents' origins, which can be complicated if birth certificates were blown up.
    I don't think anyone here thinks it is only Windrush. Again, it is an easy example to illustrate just how it failed and just how wrong it is. The other immigration issues, whist just as tragic, are less easy and more individual. This does not mean they are less deserving of attention, but that they are not as easily shown.
  • We need political leaders who will stand and lead us to where we should be going, not time servers who will do whatever is popular enough to make sure they retain their over-paid seats in Westminster..

    Has anyone in the history of political discourse ever said something like this without it actually meaning “our leaders should do what I believe is best whether it’s popular or not”?

    Statements like this are stupid because there is no such thing as a single objective definition of “where we should be going”. If there was then we wouldn’t need to have elections in order to determine which definition we’re going to follow for the next few years.
  • Yes, of course I'm looking for someone to lead the country where I want it to go.

    Or, at least someone who isn't going to lead us off a cliff edge into economic decline, international irrelevance and throwing out all the good things about Britain - including being an open country with people willing to go out of their way to help others and be fair to others.
  • Just keep reminding yourselves that this is a feature, not a bug.
  • And, although clearly suddenly suspending rights (and in many cases financial provision) for people who arrived in the UK legally and with the support of the government 40+ years ago is scandalous, it isn't just that era of immigrants who are affected. The farcical nature of UK government, and the racist attitudes of many who for no reason other than to "keep Britain white" wish to reduce immigration, means that quite often different departments work against each other. Which is why we get cases of people encouraged (often with support from the tax payer) to settle in areas where there is a need for migration then getting threatened with deportation on the flimsiest technicalities.
  • Yes, of course I'm looking for someone to lead the country where I want it to go.

    So are the fascists, the racists, the Brexiteers and everyone else with whom you disagree. If any of them was calling for the government to show "strong leadership" by doing what they want them to do regardless of how many other people disagree then you'd throw a fit, so why should you get to call for the same thing?
  • Because we live in a democracy, and Alan believes (naively perhaps) that most people are appalled by this.
This discussion has been closed.