Thread by @WindrushLives

THREAD: An open letter to @pritipatel
A group of claimants has written to the Home Sec today expressing no confidence in her or @ukhomeoffice to administer the Windrush Compensation Scheme or dismantle the hostile environment. [1/19] independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

The full text of the letter is here. 👇🏾

Tl;dr thread: [2/19] scribd.com/document/48955…

In the 3 years since the Windrush Scandal broke, it has become clear that the constituency of victims is substantial. @ukhomeoffice has admitted to stakeholders that a further assessment exercise is required to get a handle on the number of claimants. [3/19]

It is now January 2021 - 29 months have passed since @sajidjavid, then Home Secretary, announced there would be a compensation scheme. [4/19] theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Twenty months have passed since the Scheme was launched by his successor and minister-most-likely-to-name-Caligula-as-dream-dinner-party-guest @pritipatel. [5/19] gov.uk/government/new…

At least 20 victims - very likely many more, because this isn't a constituency well plugged into the internet and social media, so there are likely many victims we just don't know about - have died without seeing compensation or an apology. 👇🏾 [6/19]

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1344724861936164864?s=20

This is an ex-gratia scheme. There has been no hold-up waiting for a law to be drafted, passed or amended; the Home Secretary has always had full discretion and power to revisit the Scheme Rules and make amendments. [7/19] commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief…

To put that another way, @ukhomeoffice took 9 months to come up with this turkey, and has had 20 months since to fix it - 20 months during which it has been the beneficiary of countless representations from experts and victims. [8/19]

We now know that in that period, even the Scheme architect, Martin Forde QC, provided feedback and attempted to correct some of the more major injustices in the Scheme Rules, such as the rule on criminality allowing @ukhomeoffice to reduce awards by up to 50%. [9/19]

Sidebar: it is clear that @pritipatel has a double-punishment fetish, as seen most recently in her bid to reduce the term of custody triggering deportation from 12 to 6 months. Especially of Jamaicans, for some known reason. [10/19]

Twenty months, WITH input from experts, WITH evidence from claimants that they are being re-traumatised, WITH the Scheme architect trying to steer @ukhomeoffice right, has resulted in this tepid set of half-measures @pritipatel calls an overhaul. [11/19] gov.uk/government/new…

And wouldn't you know it - those "fast-tracked" £10k payments, which were supposed to be rolled out beginning in the week of 14 December, have failed to materialise. Here's the Pritster telling Commons in December that they would start immediately: [12/19]

The HO either doesn't know how to fix the Scheme, or refuses to do so. There is no political will to make amends to Windrushers; the @Conservatives are more interested in medieval double-punishment laws, tipping over refugees at sea and demonising Black Lives Matter. [13/19]

At the *bare minimum*, a bona fide appeal mechanism would allow scrutiny of case decisions. But the Scheme was set up allowing @ukhomeoffice to mark its own homework at first instance, then pass it up to a friendly government-appointed body at the second stage. [14/19]

This is despite the fact that at least one independent body - the @PHSOmbudsman - wanted to be involved, and was utterly dismayed to be excluded from the process. [15/19]

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1310999702154940425?s=20

Enough is enough. There isn't time for @ukhomeoffice to scrape up the energy to look at the evidence it is given, dawdle over using it for months on end, then tinker feebly at the edges. There isn't time to wait for @pritipatel to sprout a human offshoot with a soul. [16/19]

The Windrush Compensation Scheme must be taken away from @ukhomeoffice and placed in the care of an independent external body immediately. Victims and claimants simply don't see any other viable alternative, and they'd like for this to be over within their lifetimes. [17/19]

If you care *at all* about a functioning democracy in which government is held to account for its malfeasances, and where Black and minority ethnic citizens are treated with equal respect and dignity, you NEED to know about this, and to help us do something about it. [18/19]

Thanks to the excellent @maybulman for reporting on this and the #WindrushCompensationScandal more broadly. [19/19]