Windrush day is held every year on 22nd June, celebrating the arrival and contributions of the Windrush generation. This year marks 78 years since the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush, carrying almost 500 Caribbean migrants who came to make the UK their home. This also coincides with Refugee week, (17th – 21st June 2026) a celebration of sanctuary-seekers that takes place across the UK and internationally.
In this longer blog, we will reflect on the significance of these two national events in the context of the hostile environment, thinking about the history and future of the UK’s political landscape, laws and policies.
In 2012, the Home Office launched hostile environment policies that led to the Windrush scandal, which was brought to public attention many years later in 2018. These policies are effectively an expansion of enforcement, and are designed to restrict people’s access to basic rights and essential services such as housing, healthcare, employment and financial support.
The Windrush scandal exposed the hostile environment, but did not end it. Migrant communities face increasingly restrictive and racist laws and systems. Many people impacted by the Windrush scandal are still seeking justice through a failing compensation scheme, and despite all the noise, the government continues to push a hostile approach to immigration that is informed by discriminative policy and divisive rhetoric.
There is lots of useful information about the Windrush scandal available, you can learn more from some of these explainers:
Context: Immigration Law and Policy
Immigration law is exclusionary by nature because it decides who is allowed to be present in a country and who should be denied the right to live, work and build a life there as well as many other things. Within the UK’s immigration system comes the idea of ‘deservedness’ – who deserves to be here, who is valued, and who is considered a burden or a threat.
Historically, the element of exclusion has focused on race, with more restrictive law and policy applied to racialised people. This is established in the anonymous Independent report published by the Home Office in response to their Windrush Lessons Learned Review. The executive summary of this report found “Gradually, the politics of race and immigration became intertwined with one another to the extent that during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK.”
The Home Office’s divisive approach continues. Recent changes to good character requirements for British Citizenship applications (which you can read about here) have barred anyone who entered the UK via irregular means, or remained in the UK without lawful status from accessing citizenship. These people will largely be black and brown migrants from global majority countries facing historical colonial exploitation, economic disparity and instability, and much stricter entry requirements.
Earned settlement proposals (you can read our blog about how we prepare for these changes here) will inevitably restrict the right to settlement for racialised groups, who are already more likely to face economic and social hardship through systemic barriers. These proposals also expose the classism within the current immigration system which allows for shorter routes to settlement for those with specific skills and income, and imposes high fees for those able to enter and remain in the UK via regular routes. Those who cannot afford fees or meet income requirements or who seek financial support via public funds face penalties in the form of longer settlement routes.
Resistance and Resilience of Black Communities in the UK
There is no doubt that the Windrush generation are part of the UK, and should have full access to citizenship and all the attached rights. The hostile environment created a situation that should never have happened, but we cannot stop at demanding justice for the Windrush generation alone. The value of a person’s life and presence is more than what they have achieved or contributed and it should not have to be justified or earned.
The Windrush generation found themselves excluded and subject to racist and traumatising immigration enforcement. Safety and security was removed without warning. Even the process of exposing the scandal was not simple, because racism is ingrained in UK systems through a culture of disbelief. This is the culture that allowed the government to dismiss what was happening to the Windrush generation. It is the same culture that informs the way the asylum system functions – hostile, suspicious and exclusionary.
Black communities in the UK are resilient and have a long history of resisting and organising against racial discrimination and violence – the Windrush generation were and are central to this resistance. The community came together to respond to the scandal and campaign for justice and the Home Office has been publicly shamed, but it is clear that there is much more to be done, both for the Windrush generation and more widely.
Read more about the history of resistance and organising from British black communities:
- Insitute of Race Relations: The ‘rebel’ history of the Grove
- National Archives: The Brixton Riots and the Scarman Report
- Black History Month: History of Civil Rights in the UK
- International Black History Month UK: The British Black Panthers
- African American Intellectual History Society: Windrush and Britain’s Long History of Racialized Belonging
Seeking Justice for the Victims of the Windrush Scandal
Justice has not been served for the Windrush generation, but the Windrush scandal is not just about the Windrush generation, it is about the systems that try to divide us. The government continues to make excuses and ignore calls for an overhaul of the compensation scheme. The lack of legal aid for the scheme is again evidence of systemic racism within the Home Office, and recent statistics published on the scheme show how important it is for claimants to receive legal advice and support.
This report from Justice gives some idea of the impact that legal representation has had on awards for claimants. The figures laid out in the report show the most extreme cases of individuals being offered nil-award when applying without legal help, to £295,000 afterwards, and another jumping from £300 to £170,000.
We support the ongoing call for equal treatment of all victims of state scandals, demanding that the scheme be expanded to allow for all losses and with lower evidential requirements, to move the scheme out of the Home Office, and to ensure legal aid is available for the scheme in alignment with other state scandals. Resisting and organising to expose these inequalities is as important now as it ever was, to protect the communities affected and future generations.
The expansion of immigration enforcement affects us all, from the Windrush generation, to family members overseas, to people who have just arrived in search of safety and a home. Too often, the narrative is exclusionary, and black and brown faces are blamed for failing and divisive systems. The recent scenes of violence in Northern Ireland have shown us how dangerous this narrative is, and how easily history can repeat itself, but we must also remember that we hold power by resisting and acting in solidarity with one another.
How can you support people impacted by Windrush?
- Contact your MP to demand legal aid for the Windrush Compensation scheme and join online petitions. See the Justice4Windrush guidance.
- Give legal support – gathering and organising documents and information, accompanying people to appointments, giving emotional support. Learn more about acting in solidarity through giving legal support here.
- Have conversations about race. You may find these resources, programmes and reading lists helpful to start:
- Share the Windrush commissioner score card which lists out five urgent priorities for the Windrush commissioner.
Alongside Black Lives Matter UK, Migrants Organise and Maslaha, Right to Remain are part of the Anti-Racist Movement. We are a growing network of anti-racists, migrants, trade unionists, and community organisers. Learn more about ARM here and how to join.
– Louise Watts, Legal Education Officer
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