All of that is undoubtedly true and I agree that the Home Office showed classic cold, unfeeling bureaucratic efficiency in enforcing penalties on those deemed to not have a legal right to be here.
Or more accurately, doing what the minister ordered them to do. In other words the political system is working as it should with the minister/parliament making the decision and the public service carrying it out.
Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel
It was government policy to make proving that people had the right to live here impossible, and then let the civil servants carry the can for government policy. They're doing the same for academics now - spent a few months abroad on a data-gathering field trip a decade ago? How very sorry, you can't apply for residency.
Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel
Wow. Just wow.
I'm sorry but that is a stunningly ignorant comment. You could not possibly say that if you knew any of the facts Windrush.
It is also an irrelevance.
Why is it irrelevant? Well, let's play along for a moment; let's say that the problem really lies with Home Office civil servants rather than government policy. Well, the whole point of having democratically elected politicians heading up government departments is accountability and responsibility. If it happens on your watch; then you are responsible for it. For a government to allow such appalling things to be done by an organ of the state is also reprehensible and should lead to the fall of said government. So, even if you can lay the blame at the Home Office then it still is Mrs May's and Mr Cameron's responsibility (Well the whole cabinet really - that's the whole point of cabinet government).
Anyways, it's still bollocks: it was a direct, foreseeable and foreseen result of government policy.
There are some key policy decisions that are the cause of The Windrush Scandal:
1) That anyone who could not prove their status is assumed to have no right to reside in the UK
2) A decision to aggressively enforce immigration law
3) To make doctors, landlords and employers criminally liable for enforcing immigration laws (i.e. that if they weren't certain of someone's status they could face large fines or even imprisonment). They even tried and failed to coopt schools into this web of immigration enforcement on the cheap.
4) Large budget cuts in the Home Office which meant that there was a significant loss of senior, experienced staff and thus most of the people dealing with cases had no experience and often no knowledge of the relevant law- forcing all the decision-making to become tick-box exercises.
5) Making the costs of applying to normalise one's status prohibitively expensive.
6) Setting deportation targets
7) Outsourcing (or a payment-by-results basis) a plan to harass people into leaving 'voluntarily'
8) A deliberate decision to ignore the official advice that there was a large cohort of people who had a right to reside in the UK but might struggle to provide the necessary documentation. Impact assessments done in 2014 by the Home Office itself and this report predicted exactly the kind of difficulties for the Windrush victims as occurred over the following years.
9) The removal of legal aid from (virtually all) immigration cases.
10) The Deport first, appeal later policy
I don't care if Cameron and May only wanted to target people with no right to be here - although this is a particularly cruel way of going about it but that's beside the point - they were warned very clearly that this policy would have this effect. They choose to ignore the warnings. Therefore the blame lies primarily with them. They could not conceive that there might be people who lived here for 50 years who didn't have a passport or who when faced with a problem with their immigration status could not just find a lawyer to sort it out for them.
So as a direct result of these policies, a number of people had the law changed around them whereby they were suddenly expected to produce decades-old records they were never told they would need. And if they couldn't produce them (and let's face it, most of us would struggle) then they were assumed to be here illegally. No Job, No accommodation, No healthcare, No right to benefits. How exactly are such people meant to be able to live, never mind deal with the profoundly uninterested Home Office that is being incentivised to deport and harass people?
Whatever was in Cameron's or May's minds, they knew this would happened. They were told. Repeatedly. But they did it anyway because they wanted to appear tough on immigration to fight off UKIP. They used these people as pawns in their political game.
That is evil.
And no, you cannot palm it off on the Home Office officials. Please, Please read the fucking book.
Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel
Wow. Just wow.
I'm sorry but that is a stunningly ignorant comment. You could not possibly say that if you knew any of the facts Windrush.
It is also an irrelevance.
Why is it irrelevant? Well, let's play along for a moment; let's say that the problem really lies with Home Office civil servants rather than government policy. Well, the whole point of having democratically elected politicians heading up government departments is accountability and responsibility. If it happens on your watch; then you are responsible for it. For a government to allow such appalling things to be done by an organ of the state is also reprehensible and should lead to the fall of said government. So, even if you can lay the blame at the Home Office then it still is Mrs May's and Mr Cameron's responsibility (Well the whole cabinet really - that's the whole point of cabinet government).
Anyways, it's still bollocks: it was a direct, foreseeable and foreseen result of government policy.
There are some key policy decisions that are the cause of The Windrush Scandal:
1) That anyone who could not prove their status is assumed to have no right to reside in the UK
2) A decision to aggressively enforce immigration law
3) To make doctors, landlords and employers criminally liable for enforcing immigration laws (i.e. that if they weren't certain of someone's status they could face large fines or even imprisonment). They even tried and failed to coopt schools into this web of immigration enforcement on the cheap.
4) Large budget cuts in the Home Office which meant that there was a significant loss of senior, experienced staff and thus most of the people dealing with cases had no experience and often no knowledge of the relevant law- forcing all the decision-making to become tick-box exercises.
5) Making the costs of applying to normalise one's status prohibitively expensive.
6) Setting deportation targets
7) Outsourcing (or a payment-by-results basis) a plan to harass people into leaving 'voluntarily'
8) A deliberate decision to ignore the official advice that there was a large cohort of people who had a right to reside in the UK but might struggle to provide the necessary documentation. Impact assessments done in 2014 by the Home Office itself and this report predicted exactly the kind of difficulties for the Windrush victims as occurred over the following years.
9) The removal of legal aid from (virtually all) immigration cases.
10) The Deport first, appeal later policy
I don't care if Cameron and May only wanted to target people with no right to be here - although this is a particularly cruel way of going about it but that's beside the point - they were warned very clearly that this policy would have this effect. They choose to ignore the warnings. Therefore the blame lies primarily with them. They could not conceive that there might be people who lived here for 50 years who didn't have a passport or who when faced with a problem with their immigration status could not just find a lawyer to sort it out for them.
So as a direct result of these policies, a number of people had the law changed around them whereby they were suddenly expected to produce decades-old records they were never told they would need. And if they couldn't produce them (and let's face it, most of us would struggle) then they were assumed to be here illegally. No Job, No accommodation, No healthcare, No right to benefits. How exactly are such people meant to be able to live, never mind deal with the profoundly uninterested Home Office that is being incentivised to deport and harass people?
Whatever was in Cameron's or May's minds, they knew this would happened. They were told. Repeatedly. But they did it anyway because they wanted to appear tough on immigration to fight off UKIP. They used these people as pawns in their political game.
That is evil.
And no, you cannot palm it off on the Home Office officials. Please, Please read the fucking book.
AFZ
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel
Wow. Just wow.
I'm sorry but that is a stunningly ignorant comment. You could not possibly say that if you knew any of the facts Windrush.
It is also an irrelevance.
Why is it irrelevant? Well, let's play along for a moment; let's say that the problem really lies with Home Office civil servants rather than government policy. Well, the whole point of having democratically elected politicians heading up government departments is accountability and responsibility. If it happens on your watch; then you are responsible for it. For a government to allow such appalling things to be done by an organ of the state is also reprehensible and should lead to the fall of said government. So, even if you can lay the blame at the Home Office then it still is Mrs May's and Mr Cameron's responsibility (Well the whole cabinet really - that's the whole point of cabinet government).
Anyways, it's still bollocks: it was a direct, foreseeable and foreseen result of government policy.
There are some key policy decisions that are the cause of The Windrush Scandal:
1) That anyone who could not prove their status is assumed to have no right to reside in the UK
2) A decision to aggressively enforce immigration law
3) To make doctors, landlords and employers criminally liable for enforcing immigration laws (i.e. that if they weren't certain of someone's status they could face large fines or even imprisonment). They even tried and failed to coopt schools into this web of immigration enforcement on the cheap.
4) Large budget cuts in the Home Office which meant that there was a significant loss of senior, experienced staff and thus most of the people dealing with cases had no experience and often no knowledge of the relevant law- forcing all the decision-making to become tick-box exercises.
5) Making the costs of applying to normalise one's status prohibitively expensive.
6) Setting deportation targets
7) Outsourcing (or a payment-by-results basis) a plan to harass people into leaving 'voluntarily'
8) A deliberate decision to ignore the official advice that there was a large cohort of people who had a right to reside in the UK but might struggle to provide the necessary documentation. Impact assessments done in 2014 by the Home Office itself and this report predicted exactly the kind of difficulties for the Windrush victims as occurred over the following years.
9) The removal of legal aid from (virtually all) immigration cases.
10) The Deport first, appeal later policy
I don't care if Cameron and May only wanted to target people with no right to be here - although this is a particularly cruel way of going about it but that's beside the point - they were warned very clearly that this policy would have this effect. They choose to ignore the warnings. Therefore the blame lies primarily with them. They could not conceive that there might be people who lived here for 50 years who didn't have a passport or who when faced with a problem with their immigration status could not just find a lawyer to sort it out for them.
So as a direct result of these policies, a number of people had the law changed around them whereby they were suddenly expected to produce decades-old records they were never told they would need. And if they couldn't produce them (and let's face it, most of us would struggle) then they were assumed to be here illegally. No Job, No accommodation, No healthcare, No right to benefits. How exactly are such people meant to be able to live, never mind deal with the profoundly uninterested Home Office that is being incentivised to deport and harass people?
Whatever was in Cameron's or May's minds, they knew this would happened. They were told. Repeatedly. But they did it anyway because they wanted to appear tough on immigration to fight off UKIP. They used these people as pawns in their political game.
That is evil.
And no, you cannot palm it off on the Home Office officials. Please, Please read the fucking book.
AFZ
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
But it was a foreseeable and foreseen outcome of the way in which the government implemented its avowed policy of creating a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants. The government ought to have foreseen and was told of the impact it would have on some of its own citizens.
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
Well, the book's not available here and I couldn't be bothered paying good money to specially order it. That does not matter. What AFZ sets out is a series of matters which would have been implemented by public servants on the direction of the relevant minister.
You say that the policy was never to deport people entitled to be in the. No doubt that is true, but it was government policy to force people to prove their entitlement many, many years after their arrival. AFZ deals thoroughly with that. Unless they could prove their entitlement they had to go.
If I might offer @alienfromzog some advice: Listen to some Sweet Honey in the Rock. That should fire you right up. Listen especially when they sing about the young, and there roles as elders in the struggle. There is much wisdom in their singing, and they sing from the perspective of women deeply involved in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, a struggle indeed for full liberation, a struggle which will not end in their lifetimes.
I particularly recommend a work combining the Spiritual "I'm Gunna Stay on the Battlefield" with a poem about the setbacks endured and the battles lost. It is a stunning performance.
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
Two things:
1) I apologise if I wasn't clear; the book I meant was the one I mentioned in the OP. The Windrush Betrayal - I mention it because your comment came from a place of complete ignorance.
2) Are you being deliberately stupid?
I must warn you that such stupidity is not wise in Hell.
@BroJames and @Gee D have put it very well; this was a consequence of their policy that they were warned would happen. And they did it anyway. Your defence is that it's ok because they didn't mean it!
Well fuck that.
The Windrush Betrayal lays out some of the stories of the victims - and that's what makes it hard reading because it's real and it's human. It also lays out the steps taken by government (which I summarised for you above).
But it's ok, because they were targeting the 'bad ones' and the fact that they didn't care that their policy would have a profound effect on others (even though they knew it would) doesn't matter because they never meant it?
Threat of disaster doesn't change anything in a good way. People trade away freedoms for the perception of security (cf Patriot Act, Homeland Security etc).
It is when all crisis is perceived to be past that people will vote for their ideals.
If you want change, what you need to overcome is the sense of continuing economic crisis. The notion that our prosperity is so fragile that a single feckless government could wreck it.
Maybe the answer is that economics & democracy don't mix. Separate government into a technocratic bit that deals with taxes and borrowing and spending limits and a democratic bit that deals with foreign policy and social policy ?
select twelve candidates randomly for each constituency and get the electorate to vote for the one they want, though that might be dangerously close to democracy...
Lovely idea. But how long before Labour Party HQ publishes their preferred candidate for each consistency and Conservative Central Office does the same, and we're back where we are now...
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
Two things:
1) I apologise if I wasn't clear; the book I meant was the one I mentioned in the OP. The Windrush Betrayal - I mention it because your comment came from a place of complete ignorance.
2) Are you being deliberately stupid?
I must warn you that such stupidity is not wise in Hell.
@BroJames and @Gee D have put it very well; this was a consequence of their policy that they were warned would happen. And they did it anyway. Your defence is that it's ok because they didn't mean it!
Well fuck that.
The Windrush Betrayal lays out some of the stories of the victims - and that's what makes it hard reading because it's real and it's human. It also lays out the steps taken by government (which I summarised for you above).
But it's ok, because they were targeting the 'bad ones' and the fact that they didn't care that their policy would have a profound effect on others (even though they knew it would) doesn't matter because they never meant it?
As I said, fuck that.
AFZ
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
That is an odd response, for two reasons. Firstly your defence in this case was a defence of the government, I was merely describing what you had said. Secondly, when talking about an incredible injustice, pivoting to it's ok, it's nothing to do with me mate is a strange choice.
So I have to ask: are you being deliberately stupid?
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
You've posted stupid comments in defence of an evil policy. That's you involved in this thread. Maybe you don't need to defend the government for the evil they have enacted*, but a defence for your posts here is another matter.
* in this instance a deliberate decision to create a hostile environment for migrants, which became most obvious with the illegal deportation of people who had come to the UK during the Windrush years who had every right to live here. But also includes putting many more people through hell to produce evidence that they had every right to expect they'd never need. And, has extended to other groups of people who equally have every right to live here, people from elsewhere in the EU being the latest group to be subject to government policy of treating people as pawns in a game and then denying them the right to live in the country which is their home once their usefulness as pawns comes to an end. We could also add in "welfare reforms" designed to kill those in need of help, encouragement of violence against minorities and other examples of the evil inherent in the current government.
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
That is an odd response, for two reasons. Firstly your defence in this case was a defence of the government, I was merely describing what you had said. Secondly, when talking about an incredible injustice, pivoting to it's ok, it's nothing to do with me mate is a strange choice.
So I have to ask: are you being deliberately stupid?
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
You've posted stupid comments in defence of an evil policy. That's you involved in this thread. Maybe you don't need to defend the government for the evil they have enacted*, but a defence for your posts here is another matter.
* in this instance a deliberate decision to create a hostile environment for migrants, which became most obvious with the illegal deportation of people who had come to the UK during the Windrush years who had every right to live here. But also includes putting many more people through hell to produce evidence that they had every right to expect they'd never need. And, has extended to other groups of people who equally have every right to live here, people from elsewhere in the EU being the latest group to be subject to government policy of treating people as pawns in a game and then denying them the right to live in the country which is their home once their usefulness as pawns comes to an end. We could also add in "welfare reforms" designed to kill those in need of help, encouragement of violence against minorities and other examples of the evil inherent in the current government.
A policy aimed at illegal immigrataion was not evil. I am guessing that you are not a supporter of this government
A policy aimed at illegal immigrataion was not evil. I am guessing that you are not a supporter of this government
This little chat stems from a post in which you said Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel.. In other words, you're attempting to shift the blame from the political head of the department onto unnamed public servants. What BroJames and I have done is to point out that this just was not so. The work to devise implementation of the policy would have been carried out by the department but only after the minister at the time directed it. Then the method itself would have been approved by the minister. All this was way beyond the role of the public service.
A policy aimed at illegal immigrataion was not evil. I am guessing that you are not a supporter of this government
This little chat stems from a post in which you said Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel.. In other words, you're attempting to shift the blame from the political head of the department onto unnamed public servants. What BroJames and I have done is to point out that this just was not so. The work to devise implementation of the policy would have been carried out by the department but only after the minister at the time directed it. Then the method itself would have been approved by the minister. All this was way beyond the role of the public service.
What evidence do you have that a government minister directed Home office personel to deport the wrong people ? I also suspect that the actions of some Home office people was politically motivated in order enbarrass the government
Oh, come now. Do you know nothing of the workings of government? That sort of action would never be taken by a public servant save on the direction of a minister. The conspiracy theory in your last sentence is just plain ludicrous.
I am being incredibly restrained. You continue to show ignorance. I can't help you with that because you don't seem to be interested in learning the basic facts that would show you why this is so.
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
You've posted stupid comments in defence of an evil policy. That's you involved in this thread. Maybe you don't need to defend the government for the evil they have enacted*, but a defence for your posts here is another matter.
* in this instance a deliberate decision to create a hostile environment for migrants, which became most obvious with the illegal deportation of people who had come to the UK during the Windrush years who had every right to live here. But also includes putting many more people through hell to produce evidence that they had every right to expect they'd never need. And, has extended to other groups of people who equally have every right to live here, people from elsewhere in the EU being the latest group to be subject to government policy of treating people as pawns in a game and then denying them the right to live in the country which is their home once their usefulness as pawns comes to an end. We could also add in "welfare reforms" designed to kill those in need of help, encouragement of violence against minorities and other examples of the evil inherent in the current government.
A policy aimed at illegal immigrataion was not evil. I am guessing that you are not a supporter of this government
A policy that's aimed at preventing people needing a safe refuge finding that in our country is evil. A policy that forces people seeking such safety to put their lives into the hands of people traffickers (who are also a group of evil people), risking death crossing seas in overloaded unsuitable boats or the back of container trucks is evil. A policy that classifies people as guilty unless they can produce evidence to the contrary is evil (this applies not only to "illegal" immigrants, but also to benefit claimants and others for whom the dictum "innocent until proven guilty" no longer applies thanks to government policy).
And, you're right. I'm not a supporter of this government. I'm a believer in democracy and so will act as a believer in democracy, including calling out the government when I believe they are wrong. If that gets me into trouble then that's just more evidence that democracy is broken.
But even the most cursory glancing at the windrush fuckwittery clearly demstrates that the horrific effects to innocent parties were clear - and the responsible governmental organs just didn't fucking care.
I'm not one to simplify things by black-and-white generalizations, but that's as close to "evil" as humans tend to get.
But even the most cursory glancing at the windrush fuckwittery clearly demstrates that the horrific effects to innocent parties were clear - and the responsible governmental organs just didn't fucking care.
I'm not one to simplify things by black-and-white generalizations, but that's as close to "evil" as humans tend to get.
You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I have done with my life.
That may be so, but the fact that you seem to care more about what you call foul language than you do about people who are suffering or being oppressed speaks volumes.
You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I have done with my life.
That may be so, but the fact that you seem to care more about what you call foul language than you do about people who are suffering or being oppressed speaks volumes.
I care plenty but I never see the need for foul language.
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
"La la la not listening not listening."
It's been news for a least five years. Do keep up.
But even the most cursory glancing at the windrush fuckwittery clearly demstrates that the horrific effects to innocent parties were clear - and the responsible governmental organs just didn't fucking care.
I'm not one to simplify things by black-and-white generalizations, but that's as close to "evil" as humans tend to get.
You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I have done with my life.
You have demonstrated that you have no empathy for helpless innocents, and are an active spewer of deluded excuses defending the actions which knowingly lead to the harm of those innocents. What more does anyone possibly need to know about you?
But I am feeling nice, so let's try this one more time:
Do you really think that the government is not culpable for a policy that removed people from their homes and jobs, took away their access to healthcare, imprisoned and deported them when they have an absolute and undeniable right to reside in the UK?
And I will remind you of these two things: Firstly, that the process was that people were asked to produce impossible-to-produce documentation or assumed to be lying. And secondly, and this is key here, they were specifically warned that this would be an inevitable consequence of instituting the group of policies known as the Hostile Environment.
There's actually a bigger argument to be had about how we shouldn't treat anyone this way but I'll let that slide for the moment because the whole point of this thread is that this case demonstrates that democracy does not necessarily prevent a government from treating its own people this way. Democracy does not necessarily prevent tyranny.
They came for the Blacks but I did not speak up because I am not black...
And because of that, I think there is every need for foul language.
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
Alas the behaviour of the government over the last few years has gone beyond being cuttingly polite into large swathes of the population are ****ed in one way or another.
I disgaree. The Queen's english is perfectly sufficient
Oh, pernicious osculator of porcine penises, how very much confirming of your extremely sub-tropical intelligence is the hilariously-wrong notion that parent-fornicating invective is absent from your low-neuron-environment-based version of "proper" language. More so that you seem to fecal-gargle the idea into a suggestion that neither is it useful in conveying intensified feelings about a topic.
I should like to officially revise considerably downward my previous estimation of you. But, by all means, keep digging. It is amusing.
Expressing support for policies which treat people as sub-human commodities or bargaining chips, as guilty unless they provide impossible to supply information, is language far more foul than an entire ship load of the saltiest of sailors.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
As I've questioned before, what viable alternative to democracy do we have?
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
~possibly Churchill
Democracy doesn't equate with voting and may in fact not involve votes. With smaller groups consensus based democracy works. It takes quite a bit of time. People recognized as knowledgeable on particular issues speak. One at a time.and then they speak again if needed. Then others decide to speak, usually to ask about something, or tell an illustrative story. The group then decides they are ready to decide. A straw poll may show that the decision is going a particular way. But there's often a minority not pleased. So they have to be heard and their position incorporated. Because everyone matters. The level of respect for each other is startling.
This works in groups up to a few thousand. Best with tens to a few hundred. And significant decisions may take a week of long days. People come and go. They eat, they go home and come back. They pray.
The group needs to have extensive bonds with each other. The communities I've seen will consider all grandmothers as everyone's grandmother, and wisdom coming from age and experience. (The communities I've seen have grandmothers as the guiders to the process of discussing and deciding) A story from the group's history will draw a parallel which informs.
This is traditional decision making in intact northern communities. I've familiarity in Cree and Métis. And have read that variations of this exist in other indigenous groups (who are as distinct from each other in language and culture as English is to Chinese or Swahili).
Comments
Or more accurately, doing what the minister ordered them to do. In other words the political system is working as it should with the minister/parliament making the decision and the public service carrying it out.
Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel
It was government policy to make proving that people had the right to live here impossible, and then let the civil servants carry the can for government policy. They're doing the same for academics now - spent a few months abroad on a data-gathering field trip a decade ago? How very sorry, you can't apply for residency.
Wow. Just wow.
I'm sorry but that is a stunningly ignorant comment. You could not possibly say that if you knew any of the facts Windrush.
It is also an irrelevance.
Why is it irrelevant? Well, let's play along for a moment; let's say that the problem really lies with Home Office civil servants rather than government policy. Well, the whole point of having democratically elected politicians heading up government departments is accountability and responsibility. If it happens on your watch; then you are responsible for it. For a government to allow such appalling things to be done by an organ of the state is also reprehensible and should lead to the fall of said government. So, even if you can lay the blame at the Home Office then it still is Mrs May's and Mr Cameron's responsibility (Well the whole cabinet really - that's the whole point of cabinet government).
Anyways, it's still bollocks: it was a direct, foreseeable and foreseen result of government policy.
There are some key policy decisions that are the cause of The Windrush Scandal:
1) That anyone who could not prove their status is assumed to have no right to reside in the UK
2) A decision to aggressively enforce immigration law
3) To make doctors, landlords and employers criminally liable for enforcing immigration laws (i.e. that if they weren't certain of someone's status they could face large fines or even imprisonment). They even tried and failed to coopt schools into this web of immigration enforcement on the cheap.
4) Large budget cuts in the Home Office which meant that there was a significant loss of senior, experienced staff and thus most of the people dealing with cases had no experience and often no knowledge of the relevant law- forcing all the decision-making to become tick-box exercises.
5) Making the costs of applying to normalise one's status prohibitively expensive.
6) Setting deportation targets
7) Outsourcing (or a payment-by-results basis) a plan to harass people into leaving 'voluntarily'
8) A deliberate decision to ignore the official advice that there was a large cohort of people who had a right to reside in the UK but might struggle to provide the necessary documentation. Impact assessments done in 2014 by the Home Office itself and this report predicted exactly the kind of difficulties for the Windrush victims as occurred over the following years.
9) The removal of legal aid from (virtually all) immigration cases.
10) The Deport first, appeal later policy
I don't care if Cameron and May only wanted to target people with no right to be here - although this is a particularly cruel way of going about it but that's beside the point - they were warned very clearly that this policy would have this effect. They choose to ignore the warnings. Therefore the blame lies primarily with them. They could not conceive that there might be people who lived here for 50 years who didn't have a passport or who when faced with a problem with their immigration status could not just find a lawyer to sort it out for them.
So as a direct result of these policies, a number of people had the law changed around them whereby they were suddenly expected to produce decades-old records they were never told they would need. And if they couldn't produce them (and let's face it, most of us would struggle) then they were assumed to be here illegally. No Job, No accommodation, No healthcare, No right to benefits. How exactly are such people meant to be able to live, never mind deal with the profoundly uninterested Home Office that is being incentivised to deport and harass people?
Whatever was in Cameron's or May's minds, they knew this would happened. They were told. Repeatedly. But they did it anyway because they wanted to appear tough on immigration to fight off UKIP. They used these people as pawns in their political game.
That is evil.
And no, you cannot palm it off on the Home Office officials. Please, Please read the fucking book.
AFZ
I do not need to reading such a strange titled book book. I do know that the deportation of people entitled to be here was never government policy.
Based on what? How do you know this?
Oh, Lord.
But it was a foreseeable and foreseen outcome of the way in which the government implemented its avowed policy of creating a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants. The government ought to have foreseen and was told of the impact it would have on some of its own citizens.
Well, the book's not available here and I couldn't be bothered paying good money to specially order it. That does not matter. What AFZ sets out is a series of matters which would have been implemented by public servants on the direction of the relevant minister.
You say that the policy was never to deport people entitled to be in the. No doubt that is true, but it was government policy to force people to prove their entitlement many, many years after their arrival. AFZ deals thoroughly with that. Unless they could prove their entitlement they had to go.
Thanks for that, it's beautiful.
Two things:
1) I apologise if I wasn't clear; the book I meant was the one I mentioned in the OP. The Windrush Betrayal - I mention it because your comment came from a place of complete ignorance.
2) Are you being deliberately stupid?
I must warn you that such stupidity is not wise in Hell.
@BroJames and @Gee D have put it very well; this was a consequence of their policy that they were warned would happen. And they did it anyway. Your defence is that it's ok because they didn't mean it!
Well fuck that.
The Windrush Betrayal lays out some of the stories of the victims - and that's what makes it hard reading because it's real and it's human. It also lays out the steps taken by government (which I summarised for you above).
But it's ok, because they were targeting the 'bad ones' and the fact that they didn't care that their policy would have a profound effect on others (even though they knew it would) doesn't matter because they never meant it?
As I said, fuck that.
AFZ
Threat of disaster doesn't change anything in a good way. People trade away freedoms for the perception of security (cf Patriot Act, Homeland Security etc).
It is when all crisis is perceived to be past that people will vote for their ideals.
If you want change, what you need to overcome is the sense of continuing economic crisis. The notion that our prosperity is so fragile that a single feckless government could wreck it.
Maybe the answer is that economics & democracy don't mix. Separate government into a technocratic bit that deals with taxes and borrowing and spending limits and a democratic bit that deals with foreign policy and social policy ?
Lovely idea. But how long before Labour Party HQ publishes their preferred candidate for each consistency and Conservative Central Office does the same, and we're back where we are now...
My defence? I don't need one. I was never involved.
That is an odd response, for two reasons. Firstly your defence in this case was a defence of the government, I was merely describing what you had said. Secondly, when talking about an incredible injustice, pivoting to it's ok, it's nothing to do with me mate is a strange choice.
So I have to ask: are you being deliberately stupid?
* in this instance a deliberate decision to create a hostile environment for migrants, which became most obvious with the illegal deportation of people who had come to the UK during the Windrush years who had every right to live here. But also includes putting many more people through hell to produce evidence that they had every right to expect they'd never need. And, has extended to other groups of people who equally have every right to live here, people from elsewhere in the EU being the latest group to be subject to government policy of treating people as pawns in a game and then denying them the right to live in the country which is their home once their usefulness as pawns comes to an end. We could also add in "welfare reforms" designed to kill those in need of help, encouragement of violence against minorities and other examples of the evil inherent in the current government.
My reply is that you are deliberately offensive.
A policy aimed at illegal immigrataion was not evil. I am guessing that you are not a supporter of this government
This little chat stems from a post in which you said Windrush...It was never government policy to deport people who had the right to live here. Try blaming incompetent Home Office personel.. In other words, you're attempting to shift the blame from the political head of the department onto unnamed public servants. What BroJames and I have done is to point out that this just was not so. The work to devise implementation of the policy would have been carried out by the department but only after the minister at the time directed it. Then the method itself would have been approved by the minister. All this was way beyond the role of the public service.
What evidence do you have that a government minister directed Home office personel to deport the wrong people ? I also suspect that the actions of some Home office people was politically motivated in order enbarrass the government
I am being incredibly restrained. You continue to show ignorance. I can't help you with that because you don't seem to be interested in learning the basic facts that would show you why this is so.
AFZ
And, you're right. I'm not a supporter of this government. I'm a believer in democracy and so will act as a believer in democracy, including calling out the government when I believe they are wrong. If that gets me into trouble then that's just more evidence that democracy is broken.
But even the most cursory glancing at the windrush fuckwittery clearly demstrates that the horrific effects to innocent parties were clear - and the responsible governmental organs just didn't fucking care.
I'm not one to simplify things by black-and-white generalizations, but that's as close to "evil" as humans tend to get.
@telford, you are the worst kind of human.
You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I have done with my life.
That may be so, but the fact that you seem to care more about what you call foul language than you do about people who are suffering or being oppressed speaks volumes.
I care plenty but I never see the need for foul language.
I do not believe that there is such a policy and I would not support such a policy
"La la la not listening not listening."
It's been news for a least five years. Do keep up.
You have demonstrated that you have no empathy for helpless innocents, and are an active spewer of deluded excuses defending the actions which knowingly lead to the harm of those innocents. What more does anyone possibly need to know about you?
But I am feeling nice, so let's try this one more time:
Do you really think that the government is not culpable for a policy that removed people from their homes and jobs, took away their access to healthcare, imprisoned and deported them when they have an absolute and undeniable right to reside in the UK?
And I will remind you of these two things: Firstly, that the process was that people were asked to produce impossible-to-produce documentation or assumed to be lying. And secondly, and this is key here, they were specifically warned that this would be an inevitable consequence of instituting the group of policies known as the Hostile Environment.
There's actually a bigger argument to be had about how we shouldn't treat anyone this way but I'll let that slide for the moment because the whole point of this thread is that this case demonstrates that democracy does not necessarily prevent a government from treating its own people this way. Democracy does not necessarily prevent tyranny.
They came for the Blacks but I did not speak up because I am not black...
And because of that, I think there is every need for foul language.
AFZ
You're not very good at this are you?
Oh, pernicious osculator of porcine penises, how very much confirming of your extremely sub-tropical intelligence is the hilariously-wrong notion that parent-fornicating invective is absent from your low-neuron-environment-based version of "proper" language. More so that you seem to fecal-gargle the idea into a suggestion that neither is it useful in conveying intensified feelings about a topic.
I should like to officially revise considerably downward my previous estimation of you. But, by all means, keep digging. It is amusing.
exquisite.
I agree. I am too mature
Well done - exactly the same alliteration as pigs' pricks.
Democracy doesn't equate with voting and may in fact not involve votes. With smaller groups consensus based democracy works. It takes quite a bit of time. People recognized as knowledgeable on particular issues speak. One at a time.and then they speak again if needed. Then others decide to speak, usually to ask about something, or tell an illustrative story. The group then decides they are ready to decide. A straw poll may show that the decision is going a particular way. But there's often a minority not pleased. So they have to be heard and their position incorporated. Because everyone matters. The level of respect for each other is startling.
This works in groups up to a few thousand. Best with tens to a few hundred. And significant decisions may take a week of long days. People come and go. They eat, they go home and come back. They pray.
The group needs to have extensive bonds with each other. The communities I've seen will consider all grandmothers as everyone's grandmother, and wisdom coming from age and experience. (The communities I've seen have grandmothers as the guiders to the process of discussing and deciding) A story from the group's history will draw a parallel which informs.
This is traditional decision making in intact northern communities. I've familiarity in Cree and Métis. And have read that variations of this exist in other indigenous groups (who are as distinct from each other in language and culture as English is to Chinese or Swahili).
I do find myself wondering what Erin would say...