Thread by @WindrushLives

🌹Roses are red,
This hellscape is the opposite of irie,
The Home Office is expanding the Windrush scandal,
We urgently need an Inquiry.
🧵🚨: docs.google.com/forms/d/1Y6-AE…
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(On account of the amount of swearing and rending-of-garments in this thread - I'm @JaidevRamya. Blame no one but me for what follows.)

Last week, we sent a version of this👇🏽letter, a sign-able version of which is linked above, to many MPs.
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@JaidevRamya You may recall that in December, together with @GoodLawProject, we opened the process of seeking judicial review of @ukhomeoffice’s decision to keep control of the Windrush Compensation Scheme.

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1470760365063647235?s=20&t=s6O79ICMdX6XjWEhPC7rVw

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice On 28 Jan, we told you that the Home Office was trying to sidestep our attempt to hold it account by pretending (it seemed) not to have made a decision on whether it would keep the Scheme, then counter-briefing journalists.
goodlawproject.org/news/windrush-…
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice In response to that, we sent a follow-up asking the Home Office, a-f***ing-gain, to clarify whether it would move the Windrush Compensation Scheme to an independent organisation.

That elicited what can only be described as a further pile of… content.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice In that reply, the Home Office’s lawyers effectively told us @pritipatel had the right to respond to the @CommonsHomeAffs report - which recommended, inter alia, that the Scheme be made independent - in full, and we could go fly kites till then.

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1463410471726428160?s=20&t=s6O79ICMdX6XjWEhPC7rVw

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs I had only just begun processing my rage at the temerity and callousness of that legal response - given that victims continue to die, at speed, while the Home Office wantonly burns through time and resource defending a failed scheme -

https://twitter.com/SibonPhiri/status/1488155891698393089?s=20&t=s6O79ICMdX6XjWEhPC7rVw

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs - when its full reply to the HASC report dropped: committees.parliament.uk/publications/8…
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Par 38 of the original HASC report said the compensation scheme should be transferred to an independent organisation.

That has been formatted by the HO as recommendation 3, and its substantive response, in full, is pictured:
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs That reply - all 3 paragraphs of it - is being considered by @GoodLawProject and us.

But it’s clear that in tackling the avalanche of injustice that has befallen the Windrush generation, there is no true substitute for *political* action.

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs It’s also clear that we can no longer restrict our focus to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. That is in part b/c of this - what looks to be a very significant *policy* change, announced (only, as far as I can tell) on the Home Office’s Media blog: homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/01/24/upd…

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs A very rough summary: Windrush victims have been swept up into an increasingly (over time) hostile environment towards migrants (and people of colour), in a variety of ways.

One of the less well known ways relates to ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’ (ILR).
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs If you hold ILR, you are subject to an important condition - being outside of the UK for more than 2 years (2 years + 1 day) causes your leave to lapse.

This is known as the ‘2 year-rule’; the current version is in a statutory instrument from 2000: legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/1161…
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Between at least 2006 and 23 Jan, C’wealth migrants - Windrush victims - have benefited from a waiver of the 2 year-rule if they returned before August 1990.

This is a vital provision for the large number of Windrush victims who were *prevented from re-entering* the UK.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs E.g. if you first came here in 1975 from the C’wealth, obtained ILR, left from 1985-1989, and were refused re-entry in 1989 because your ILR had ‘lapsed’, you could apply to the Windrush Scheme to reinstate your ILR - because of the waiver.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Despite sounding like a highly specific quirk, this is a common situation, and one that seems to affect African C’wealth migrants disproportionately (CAN’T THINK WHY). We know of dozens of cases in Nigeria alone - people forced apart from their parents/kids by the state.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs The “small error”, as the HO puts it, arises from the unholy mess that is immigration law. Legally, the position is unclear: for one thing, there appears to be a judgment from 1987 that indicates the HO is correct.

This is why the problem is political, first and foremost.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Immigration law bends to political will more easily and nonsensically than most other types of law - when things go wrong, we blame outsiders, especially those of different colour. It’s just easy - so much easier than tax hikes and spending packages to actually fix things.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Nevertheless, and in particular, regardless of the contradictory and confusing path charted by statute and case law, it has been a matter of *policy*, since at least 2006, that Commonwealth migrants who settled pre-1990 were exempt from the 2 year-rule.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs That has meaningfully affected people’s understanding of whether they have a right to be here.

There are people, with open or forthcoming applications to both the Windrush Scheme and the Windrush Compensation Scheme, who have relied on this waiver.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs It is beyond bad faith for @ukhomeoffice to roll out a policy change which hobbles those cases on a ****ing blog post, AND to pretend it’s a small, meaningless thing.

The same HO which will UNDOUBTEDLY reject the applications from the previous tweet, on these grounds.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs It appears to me - and to others more in the know - that this is a calculated move to reduce Windrush Compensation Scheme payouts.

Remember, the vast majority of victims - if we include those in exile, which we absolutely should - haven’t even applied yet.

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs The HO has been repeatedly lobbied about victims who remain stuck in other countries. Those efforts have become louder and clearer over time.

And as campaigners (inc us) have intensified attacks on the WCS, the HO’s handling of the scheme has come under greater scrutiny.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Wouldn’t it be simpler, cheaper, and just better all round for the Government if those unaccounted-for overseas victims ceased to exist, through a quick, opaque and not-properly-publicised shifting of the goalposts?

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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs What this episode makes clear is that the Windrush Scandal is not over. @ukhomeoffice seems to be looking for inventive ways to wipe the slate clean, i.e., reneging on its promises, redefining the parameters, and waiting for victims to die.

It is succeeding.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs We *will* keep reviewing the legality of its actions.

But legality is a function of the law, and immigration law is almost entirely an expression of the most bigoted and insularly-minded of the prevailing political sentiments at any given time. We can’t outrun that fact.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs That is why we are asking you to sign and share this open letter to MPs.

It asks for 2 things: first, for the Windrush Compensation Scheme to be removed and placed in the custody of an independent organisation.
docs.google.com/forms/d/1Y6-AE…
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Second, for a Windrush Inquiry.

As this thread hopefully makes clear, the HO’s motivations are deeply suspect; it has misled about the law, “lost” landing cards, and is now trying to pass off a potentially huge change in policy as something akin to a transcribing error.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs It has devised a shockingly poor compensation scheme, resolutely resisted external scrutiny of that scheme, and repeatedly put out misleadingly designed statistics and false, self-congratulatory press releases about how many victims are being paid, and how well.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs It is refusing to make the Scheme independent, but apparently has no more than 3 short paragraphs of generic, warmed-over claptrap to justify such a serious and fundamental position.

We cannot trust this position, because we cannot trust the Home Office.
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Here’s a sentence I never imagined I - or indeed any other living person - could correctly say:
Donald Rumsfeld (🤢) put it best.


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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs We need a Windrush Inquiry because the breadth and depth of this Scandal are unknown-unknowns.

It didn’t have to be this way. But the HO has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted to tell us what it *does* know. Can it be trusted to tell us what we *don’t* know? (No.)
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs Specifics on what such an Inquiry should cover are set out in the letter.

Please, please, read it, sign it and pass it on . ✍🏼 🚨docs.google.com/forms/d/1Y6-AE…
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@JaidevRamya @GoodLawProject @ukhomeoffice @pritipatel @CommonsHomeAffs And since nothing moves an MP like knowing their specific voters are pissed off about something, once you’ve signed and shared, why not RT, tagging them? 😁
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