BBC 2 Programme on 70 Years of Windrush Style Deportations

Next Saturday, 13th June 2020, according to the Radio Times, BBC 2 is screening a documentary. Titled The Unwanted: the Secret Windrush Files, the programme reveals the background to the grossly unjust and illegal Windrush deportations. This was when the children of Windrush migrants were deported back to their countries of origin, even though they had lived here since childhood and had been legally granted citizenship. The programme is presented by David Olusoga and shows that similar illegal deportations had been going on for the past 70 years, providing the institutional frame work of discrimination for those of last year. The blurb for it in the Radio Times for 13-19 June 2020 run

David Olusoga opens secret government files that show how the “Windrush Scandal” has been 70 years in the making. In this film from 2019, the historian traces the stories of Sarah O’Connor, Anthony Bryan and Judy Griffith, all legally settled in the UK, who were reclassified as illegal immigrants. Unable to show proof of their status, they lost jobs and savings and faced deportation back to countries they could barely remember.

A piece by David Butcher a few pages earlier states

In 2017, press reports uncovered the plight of Caribbean migrants who, having lived in Britain legally for decades, were facing deportation as a result of the Home Office’s “hostile environment” policy. But what became known as the Windrush Scandal didn’t come out of nowhere, argues David Olusoga in this superb documentary, first shown last year.

He looks back at 70 years of UK policy through human stories and official documents. “At iots heart,” Olusoga concludes of th epolicy, “was a belief that no matter what the laws of citizenship might say … black and brown people could never really be British.”

The programme’s on at 8.15 in the evening.

 

Tags: Anthony Bryan, Asians, Blacks, David Butcher, David Olusoga, Deportations, Home Office, Judy Griffith, racism, Radio Times, Sarah O'Connor, Windrush Migrants