By Laura McBride
Amber Rudd has resigned as Home Secretary following a series of highly publicised blunders regarding the Windrush scandal.
Amber Rudd has resigned as Home Secretary following a series of highly publicised blunders regarding the Windrush scandal.
Windrush refers to a generation of immigrants invited over to the UK to rebuild the country following the Second World War from the Caribbean from 1948 to 1971. The name comes from the famous passenger ship Windrush, which brought 492 passengers from islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The generation ended after the 1971 Immigration Act, which gave all arrivals from Commonwealth countries prior to 1971 indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
However, the problem has arisen now that many of these Commonwealth citizens were children when they arrived in the UK, and had travelled on the passports of parents; no requirement of travel documents mean there is no record of their arrival in the UK. There was, therefore, no record of arrival or right to remain in the UK for the majority of people who arrived in this time period. In 2010, the Home Office destroyed landing cards belonging to the Windrush Generation under the leadership of Theresa May as Home Secretary, which meant there was no paper trail of arrivals in the UK. Many of these arrivals believed they were British citizens, due to their native countries not being independent at the time of their moving to the UK.
Amber Rudd was made to step down because of her involvement in Theresa May’s so called “hostile environment for immigrants”. MPs investigating the Windrush issue discovered that there were targets for deportation, which Rudd had denied the existence of. Following this, she admitted that voluntary targets were set by some “local” jurisdictions. The Guardian leaked a memo on Saturday which was sent to Rudd and other senior ministers, which outlined targets of an increase in deportations by 10% as set by Rudd personally. This undermined what she had told the Home Affairs Select Committee last week, and forced her hand to resign in accordance with ministerial code, having misled Parliament which is a violation of this.
Amber Rudd’s replacement has been announced to be Sajid Javid, who moves from his role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to take up the position as Home Secretary. In his short time as Home Secretary, he has pledged “decency and fairness” to Windrush migrants. Javid’s parents are migrants from Pakistan who arrived in the early 1960s, making him the first black and minority ethnic Home Secretary, and has spoken of his personal connection to the scandal, saying that it could have been “me, my mum or dad”.
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