Tough truths revealed by the Windrush scandal

Until recently, Windrush was probably a name that resonated mainly among the Afro-Caribbean community, political activists and students of British social history. In 2018, it has become a household discussion point, synonymous with scandal and the appalling mistreatment of a community that deserved respect and admiration.

There is no need to rehearse the detail here, as it has been covered extensively across the media in recent weeks. We have listened to stories of personal tragedy, bureaucratic intransigence and the creation of an environment so ‘hostile’ that it led to people being harassed and even deported with no just cause.

The furore has engulfed Theresa May’s government and rightly so. It’s led to the resignation of one of her most senior ministers and trusted allies.

But there is one shocking revelation that has attracted relatively little attention.

Recent opinion polls show that Windrush has seemingly had no impact on levels of Conservative Party support.

ICM, YouGov and Ipsos MORI tell us broadly the same story. After all the relentless coverage, all the outrage, all the emotion and all the government incompetence, we are left with zero political effect.

Zilch.

Zip.

And this is the hardest lesson of all from the Windrush affair. One that the London media bubble doesn’t understand and the Westminster cognoscenti try desperately to ignore.

The UK still has a fundamental problem with issues of race and immigration, particularly outside the big cosmopolitan cities.

In YouGov tracker polls, immigration and asylum is the biggest issue named by respondents after Brexit and health. (Brexit, incidentally, is head and shoulders above the other issues, although we could argue that immigration played no small part in the culture that gave birth to the referendum.)

More people name immigration as an important issue than choose the economy. It’s highlighted by a greater number of respondents than education and the environment combined.

This should make us think a little more critically about the whole Windrush saga and the context which gave rise to it.

Yes, Theresa May created what came to be known as the ‘hostile environment’. But did she really start it? Labour – despite being much more open to immigration in the Blair era – felt the pressure build during the first decade of this century and started to modify its position. A number of the terrible stories of Kafkaesque persecution of British citizens pre-date the Coalition government of 2010.

And how has Labour’s position on immigration developed in the eight years since it lost office?

Remember Ed Milband’s pledge mug in 2015?

What about Jeremy Corbyn’s rhetoric on migrant workers, which some have likened in tone to that of Nigel Farage?

Diane Abbott, when questioned the other day by Piers Morgan, seemed unable to articulate a clear policy on illegal immigration.

And here’s where things become very sticky. Theresa May is probably absolutely right in her assumption that while people are shocked by the treatment of the Windrush generation and their descendants, this concern does not translate into a generalised desire for more liberal immigration policies.

Perhaps Labour can formulate a policy on illegal immigration that is different from May’s, yet still wins the support of the wider population and Labour’s heartland voters. But it’s difficult to imagine how.

And the situation is made even messier in that people’s attitudes towards perfectly legal immigrants – those from EU nations such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania – is often shamefully resentful and occasionally downright hostile.

As a nation, we look with horror at the endemic racism that still pervades political discourse and community life in the USA. We feel our multicultural society to be superior to the more ghettoised and confrontational culture many would argue exists across the Channel.

But when are we going to face up to the fact that we still have a fundamental problem of our own?