Windrush - twig or branch?

I can't stop thinking about the so-called Windrush scandal. I say so-called, because I think there's a danger that we have got hold of the wrong end of the stick if this is 'only' about the Windrush generation. Or rather, we have grabbed firmly on to the twig, but if we run with that, it will snap away, leaving the main branch, the bigger point, unmoved.

Don't get me wrong - the Windrush scandal is certainly shocking. The way individuals have been treated correlates with my definition of criminal. But these individual cases are but twigs from a thicker branch of systemic hostility to "the other".

If we allow ourselves to be focused on individual cases, we allow Theresa May and the Government and, in fact, ourselves, off the hook. If the concern is that person A is deported in error, an apology can be made, decisions reversed and even, potentially, compensation made. And there the story dies, with no hint of "lessons having been learned" as the favoured saying goes. The systemic source of the problem remains firmly rooted in society.

We should be asking much bigger questions.

Why did ANY minister ever think this was an acceptable way to behave? What are the cultural assumptions behind a cabinet and a government department that can seek to ensnare its own citizens through failure to produce ludicrous amounts of documentation, when the best and easiest evidence of all was deliberately destroyed by the Government's own hand?

Why is this only now a scandal? The cases have been public knowledge for months or years. Why didn't the mainstream media fuss before? Why do we, the public, accept such shallow journalism that most media outlets decided it wasn't newsworthy until suddenly, everyone is talking about it? Where were the BBC, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail for the last year? THIS is a scandal - the abject failure of the press to hold the executive to account.

And most uncomfortable of all, why are we outraged? To be fair, The Tories make no secret of their nasty policies. They even invoked the term "Hostile Environment". What were we expecting when we voted for them? What did we imagine "hostile" to mean? We've spent several years increasing the rhetoric about controlling immigration and tightening our borders. We've allowed The Tory Government to set absurd targets for reducing immigration even though every single piece of research and evidence made it clear that it wasn't a real problem. Why are we now indignant that they have implemented what we said we wanted?

We, the voting population are utterly complicit I'm afraid. And what's worse, is that despite the outrage, we have recently voted to make it happen again. Brexit apparently has as one of its defining aims, the removal of EU immigrants from our country. Like the Windrush generation, they came legally and at our invitation and many have been here for decades. They too have paid taxes and pensions. They too have worked and contributed to building the country. They too have married and had children here. And now we are in the process of denying them rights that were previously a given. They too now feel confused and betrayed and rejected and stressed beyond imagining. They too have already received threatening letters of deportation, subsequently dismissed by the Home Office as administrative errors. Steadfastly we refuse to guarantee their rights.

If we are genuinely outraged by the Windrush scandal, we should demand action, not words. Action from the Government and action from ourselves.

Stop the disgrace of Brexit now and apologise unconditionally for the appalling treatment we have dished out to our friends and neighbours. We are in danger of repeating a grave moral error.
If you mean it, do something about it. Write to your MP. And use your vote for a Remain party next month.


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