The unkept promises of the Windrush scandal, with Amelia Gentleman
Through dogged reporting in The Guardian, Amelia Gentleman showed that British residents and citizens who had arrived from the Caribbean in the 1950s and 60s had been mistakenly classified as unauthorized immigrants. That came to be known as the Windrush Scandal.
Three years on, I caught up with Amelia Gentleman ahead of Windrush Day to talk about its aging victims, the compensation scheme and the Home Office’s promises of reform. And in the waning days of the EU settlement scheme, we ask: Just as the Windrush generation was caught out by the end of free movement in the empire, could the Brexit generation be Britain’s next immigration scandal?
00:23 Intro
02:42 Amelia Gentleman's career story
04:20 The Windrush scandal: a primer
08:14 Malice, incompetence or both?
10:49 People screaming into the void
14:42 When austerity and the hostile environment meet
17:31 Individual cases were solved, but systemic issues ignored
19:51 How these stories became "The Windrush Scandal"
25:29 Has the compensation scheme held its promises?
29:08 Could the EU Settlement Scheme be the next Windrush scandal?
35:53 How do you relate to a country that has turned its back on you?
44:07 Outro
📚 The Windrush Betrayal, by Amelia Gentleman. Guardian Faber Publishing. 2020.
📰 Read Amelia's work in The Guardian.
🐦 Follow Amelia on Twitter.
🎧 Related episodes on the British immigration system:
- 34 Wtf is going on at the Home Office? with Daniel Trilling
- 24 "We have a deeply unfeminist immigration system" with Zoe Gardner
- 30 Should we abolish borders? with Leah Cowan
- 23 When your passport locks you in with Selda Shamloo
- 05 How being nasty to immigrants became law with Colin Yeo