The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal

26 September 2024: Gov.uk: Independent report : Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal: independent research report

”What this history tells us, above all, is that individual episodes or events do not happen in chronological isolation. Government departments operate in societies with long and complex histories which affect both the formulation and also the effects of policy. In the case of the Windrush Scandal, the ‘hostile environment’ policies implemented in the 2010s did not consider properly the people whose lives and heritage have been defined by the events described in this report.”

Executive summary: Learning lessons from history

This report tells two stories alongside one another. The first story it tells is that of the administration of what might loosely be called ‘immigration policy’ in the United Kingdom, in which the movement of people across the borders of the British Isles was periodically restricted and controlled. The second story it tells is that of the history of black people and other ethnic minorities in Britain, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the politics of race in the British Empire and, latterly, the United Kingdom.

Gradually, the politics of race and immigration became intertwined with one another to the extent that during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK. The complex history of the British Empire explains why race and racism as political and social issues developed as they did in the UK; the actions of postwar governments explain the state of play in the twenty-first century – of which the deep-rooted racism of the Windrush Scandal is a symptom.

These are the general themes, but there are also more specific lessons to be learned from an investigation of the historical roots of the Windrush Scandal. These are as follows:

The Windrush Scandal was caused by a failure to recognise that changes in immigration and citizenship law in Britain since 1948 had affected black people in the UK differently than they had other racial and ethnic groups. As a result, the experiences of Britain’s black communities of the Home Office, of the law, and of life in the UK have been fundamentally different from those of white communities.
Major immigration legislation in 1962, 1968 and 1971 was designed to reduce the proportion of people living in the United Kingdom who did not have white skin.
The relationship between the Home Office and organisations set up to deal with race relations was dysfunctional in the second half of the twentieth century. The work of various governmental bodies in combatting discrimination in the UK was separate from the task given to the Home Office to reduce immigration. This led to a paradoxical situation in which immigration policy assumed that too many immigrants from a minority ethnic background were bad for society, but race relations policy promoted the idea of racial equality.

This report does not make recommendations as such. It is intended as an accessible explainer on how race and immigration policy came to be so closely entwined in the political history of the UK.

Guardian: Home Office forced to release critical report on origins of Windrush scandal

Government had objected to report’s publication as it may ‘damage trust of affected communities’

The Home Office has been forced to release a suppressed report on the origins of the Windrush scandal by a tribunal judge who quoted George Orwell in a judgment criticising the department’s lack of transparency.

For the past three years, Home Office staff have worked to bury a hard-hitting research paper that states that roots of the scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population.

The 52-page analysis by a Home Office-commissioned historian, who has not been named, described how “the British empire depended on racist ideology in order to function” and explained how this ideology had driven immigration laws passed in the postwar period.

The department rejected several freedom of information requests asking for the Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal to be released, arguing that publication might damage affected communities’ “trust in government” and “its future development of immigration policy”.