So Windrush happened, and yet UK Home Office immigration data still has 'appalling defects' The Home Office is making life-changing decisions using "incorrect data from systems that are not fit for purpose" and has not fixed the "appalling defects" identified during the Windrush scandal, MPs have said. Parliament's influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) slammed the department's "systemic failure to keep accurate …
Yes, the most incompetant Home Secretary in recorded history becomes PM and makes a total fuck-up of the most important political event in living history - who'd have guessed that would happen.
Personally I'm for remaining in the EU. Given the referendum result an extraction from the EU would be possible if we had a vaguely competent executive - we don't so Brexit will be an unmitigated disaster, not because Brexit is a terrible idea (it is) but because May is useless.
It's not just the immigration data, surprise surprise...
MPs condemn Home Office over new Windrush failings
Report highlights failure to support those affected, with systemic problems still evident
[...]
Officials are still unable to say when a compensation scheme will be launched; meanwhile, many of those affected are in dire financial circumstances caused by periods of enforced unemployment, the removal of unemployment benefits, and debts run up trying to pay legal bills and Home Office fees; some remain homeless.
The report also found that:
The Home Office displayed a lack of concern for the impacts of its immigration policies on people without documents, compounding this with a systemic failure to keep accurate records, leaving many people who are British citizens struggling to prove their right to be in the UK.
There were numerous examples of the department doing “as little, rather than as much, as possible to find and help people affected by its actions”.
The Home Office was failing in its duty of care to identify and support everyone affected by the Windrush scandal. Greater attention should be given to large numbers of non-Caribbean victims.
Officials have been “woefully complacent” in promoting the existence of the Windrush scheme, which works to help affected people get their papers, particularly internationally.
British ethnic minorities remained vulnerable to being discriminated against by hostile environment policies that require landlords and employers to check documentation.
The Windrush failures had “major implications for the future as the UK prepares to leave the EU”.
hopeless, dishonest and lacks any sort of interpersonal skills
I'm not convinced that the latter is necessarily a problem - plenty of people have succeeded in high office with that flaw (eg: Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill, Maggie T.). And I'm not sure she's consciously a liar either.
What I do think is that she's far, far out of her depth (it could be argued that Home Secretay was beyond her capability, let alone PM). She became PM because she was the one that the Tory MPs disliked the least and because the clever candidates realised what a crapshoot being PM would be in a Brexit world.
Sort of like a real-life Jim Hacker.
"Yes, the most incompetant Home Secretary in recorded history..."
I'll treat that as "living memory" rather than "recorded history". In my living memory there has been one great Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, who used the job to kick off the society we live in. There have been a few other competent ones -- Callaghan, Whitelaw, Hurd -- but mostly awful and illiberal. John Reid sticks out in my mind for unsuitability for the job, or for any role in public life. Far less able and temperamentally suited than May.
Thanks to most of the contributors in this discussion for their considered thoughts.
The same way that British policing always has:
If you're white, you may be alright
If you're brown, stick around
If you're black, get back.
Variations available for American, Canadian, French, Belgian, German, etc., policing. Special cases available for Armenians or Kurds in Turkey. (No, not special cases of truncheons. Well, not only special cases of truncheons.)
"They threw the relevant data away. How does a new system deal with that?"
Easy. Anyone who can (on the basis of age) plausibly claim to have arrived at that time and who has (on the basis that they are still here) managed to avoid deportation for the umpteen decades during which the government *had* the records, must be presumed to be legally in the UK.
I'd go a stage further. (But May wouldn't) - Given the total balls-up of government policy and activity over decades, which is impossible to fairly resolve, just say that anyone in the UK on date X (29/3/19?) will be given a piece of paper that says they are UK citizens with the right to reside in the UK, and their personal details will be recorded. After that you implement a fit-for-purpose immigration system.
I mean, there is all this farce over whether immigrants are allowed to stay, and how they prove they can. How does it work with this renting thing - must prove right to rent? Someone born in the UK 30 years ago, of UK parents and grandparents, may have no ID except a paper birth certificate which proves nothing. That's it. How do they prove who they are? How do they rent a house?
And the point is that a British-born UK subject has never legally had to prove anything. They're here. That's enough. So decide that everyone here is okay, and then manage the borders in the future.
I am white, ready to retire and was caught up in this crap.
I am UK born & bred to a "Foreign" father and we share the same name.
I have never lived elsewhere and the old man had been here since late 40's until he did 30 years ago. Over the last 7 years I have 6 interviews and it has been suggested that I consider going home or being forced to go.
Producing legal documents didn't stop them (a lot more than boarding passes have been destroyed haven't they Tzar May?) including many naturalisation documents.
It didn't stop until I got my Military Veteran Status Certificate and confirmation of the extreme vetting and background checks confirmed that they backed off.
The arsehole who did the last interview was really pissed and just glared at my solicitor and documents.
There is a thriving diaspora pod with about 50 people on it with similar problems. A few gave up and just moved using dual nationality status in Germany. The others are mostly scared stiff.
Windrush may be high profile but they are not alone.
Anonymous for a bloody good reason.
... must be presumed to be legally in the UK
Yes, in a just world anda country that prides itself on having a sense of fairness - that would be what happens. However, under the policies implemented during the reign of Treasonous May in hte Home Office, they have a policy of "you are an illegal immigrant, with no rights to anything unless you can prove you aren't".
In a fair system, it would be a case of at least giving people an automatically renewed, time limited, right to remain while disputes and appeals are worked out. But no, it's deport first, ask questions later. And if you avoid deportation, then you lose the roof over your head (thanks to the "right to rent" requirements that have just been declared illegal) and the money to put food on the table (because of similar rules on employment). Of course, after a few years (some people have been fighting Home Office incompetence for over SIX years) you may win - but you won't ever get back what you lost.
It's an embarrassment to everyone in this country with any sense of decency.
They threw the relevant data away. How does a new system deal with that?
Allow anyone that has lived here for 20+ years (which would be fairly easy to work out from external data like Council rent data or Council tax data) to be given automatic right-to-remain.
Of course that would drive the frothing xenophobes into meltdown - which would be a bonus.
Who authorised the destruction of the Windrush data does still have a job, although I am not too sure ehe is doing it well.
The files were destroyed six months into the maybot's stint as Home Secretary, then she tried to blame it on the previous Labour government.
Unelected, unimaginative, unliked and unsympathetic to thousands of people who helped the UK to recover after the war.
"Unelected,"
I agree with everything you said but that. She was elected. Just like every other MP Most PMs are not elected specifically as PM, ie on rare occasions they may be appointed by the Sovreign and not be elected at all. But T May *was* elected. Here in the UK we don't vote for the Dear Leader. The winning party chooses the PM, who is usually the party leader who campaigned, but there's no rule or law that says the winning party leader has to be PM.
Really? I'll give you "vocal" and "repeatedly showing up the government and civil service to be totally unfit for purpose" but I'm struggling with "influential". They appear to name and shame just about every part of government on a rolling cycle of just a few years and yet nothing actually seems to change.
"They appear to name and shame just about every part of government on a rolling cycle of just a few years and yet nothing actually seems to change."
Every part? Somehow the "influential Public Accounts Committee" seems to be overlooked in that rolling cycle.
Doesn't matter what system is in place or which data uk.gov hold. If down the line they decide to downgrade your immigration status for whatever reason (accent, duskiness etc) then you're out. This is what we the British people voted for! If this wasn't part of the will of the people why did the for'reer Home Secretary, who brought in the hostile environment to foreigners, get voted in? Send 'em Home! England For The English! Et-fucking-cetera. Own it. Or stop pandering to the Little Englanders.
If EUers staying in the UK haven't clocked how uk.gov treats British Subjects them more fool them for risking staying put.
"So Windrush happened"
Windrush was a period of immigration. It was a good thing, bringing needed skills and people into the country
The Windrush Scandal was the disgraceful government policy in treating people of the "Windrush generation" decades later.
You can't refer to one with the name of the other.
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