What does Windrush mean now?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2019

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

In April 2018 the Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned and delivered an unprecedented apology for the “appalling” actions of her own department towards Windrush-era citizens. It came 5 months after an investigation by a Guardian journalist into what has become known as the Windrush scandal. The scandal affected an unknown number of people who arrived in the UK as children from the Caribbean but were never formally naturalised or hadn’t applied for a British passport. We speak to Amelia Gentleman, the investigative journalist who broke the story and whose book The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment has just come out. We also hear from Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, author of Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children, about what Windrush means now. Presenter: Tina Daheley Producers: Jaja Muhammad and Philly Beaumont Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Tina Dehealy.
0:08.1	Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,
0:11.5	where we ask one big question about one big story every weekday.
0:15.7	Today we're asking what does windrush mean now.
0:26.0	Sometimes it feels like there's been only one big political story in this
0:37.4	country since the earthquake of the referendum but two years ago a journalist on the Guardian started work on a story that would rock
0:46.9	the government with another huge scandal. It was about immigration. It ended up with Amber Rudd the Home Secretary resigning.
0:57.0	Sajid Javit has replaced Amber Rudd as Home Secretary.
1:01.0	And an apology from the Prime Minister.
1:04.0	I want to say to apologize to them and I want to say sorry to anyone who has been caused
1:10.8	has confusion or anxiety felt as a result of this.
1:16.2	For a journalist investigating a big political scandal,
1:19.0	that's normally game over.
1:21.6	But in this case, it's had a much bigger impact. It's changed how many people feel when they
1:27.2	hear the word that carries so much weight in the story of immigration to this country.
1:33.0	Windrush.
1:34.3	I've been speaking to Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
1:36.4	from Galdem magazine, who's edited a book about Windrush
1:40.1	and to Amelia Gentlemen, the journalist who broke the story.
1:44.7	It began in November 2017 when I was contacted by a clarity in Wilverhampton.
1:51.3	The charity was very worried about one of its clients, a woman called Paulette Wilson, who was 61 who'd come to Britain at the age of 10 or 11, she's not totally sure, and who had lived in Britain, worked here, brought up a
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