LONDON (Labour Buzz) - On Wednesday Britain will be celebrating the lifting of lockdown 2.0. However, 50 unfortunate people will be heading out on another mass deportation flight which has eerie echoes of the Windrush scandal. At the heart of all this is everyone’s favourite pantomime villain, Priti Patel who seems determined to keep up the hostile enforcement.
Now, a UK-based campaign group, BARAC UK, has launched a petition to halt the deportation. As of November 28, the petition has 171,385 signatures.
The Home Office has previously been accused of having a “lack of commitment” to equality as found in the inquiry into the hostile environment policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The racist policy resulted in the wrongful deportation and maltreatment of black Britons who were entitled to live in the UK.
During the height of the Windrush scandal, protests and public disagreements led to the deportations to be halted. However, under Patel, the Home Office is gearing up to repeat all the same mistakes with another mass deportation of people, many of whom have been here since childhood.
Zita Holbourne co-founder and chair at BARAC said: “We believe it is totally wrong to be deporting people to Jamaica in the middle of a pandemic and when the Windrush Lessons Learned recommendations have not yet been implemented.”
The saga contains unpleasant flashbacks of the Windrush scandal. Theresa May’s much vaunted hostile environment saw the Home Office deport people in their thousands. However, many of them were found to have had citizenship, while others reportedly died after being deported. The most recent investigation into the Home Office’s mass deportations found that, between March 2018 and May 2019, at least five deportees to Jamaica were killed.
Despite obvious public backlash, the Home Office has claimed that the flight will continue as scheduled.
“We make no apology for seeking to remove dangerous foreign criminals to keep the public safe,” said the Home Office. “That is why we regularly operate charter flights to different countries to remove dangerous criminals who have no right to be here.”
However, the deportation risks ripping families apart in the run-up to Christmas and exposing people to Covid-19. Aside from the many reports suggesting the BAME community has a higher risk of contracting Coronavirus, maintaining social distancing when detaining someone is nearly impossible.
A previous deportation flight back to Jamaica in March resulted in a national crisis, could the same thing happen now? Galdem magazine has produced a more extensive report on the matter in which they highlight several ways to help stop the deportation:
- Sign the petition to stop the deportations here
- Tweet @UKHomeOffice and call on them to cancel the flight. Use the hashtag #Jamaica50
- Follow @baracuk on Twitter. RT their tweets and share the news reports there.
- Write to your MP calling on them to write to the Home Secretary urgently – you can use gal-dem’s email template found here (please send any responses you receive to barac.info@gmail.com).
- If you or someone you know is impacted or at risk, urge them to get legal advice straight away – they can recommend lawyers if needed.
(Written by Klaudia Fior, Edited by Tom Cropper)