Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government backtracks in Windrush row

How did the government manage to create such a terrible row over the Windrush generation? The Home Office has told many people who arrived here as children in the late 1940s and 1950s that they are in fact illegal immigrants because they cannot produce documents from 40 years ago about their residence here. That in itself might have been a terrible cock-up, but Number 10’s decision to then turn down a request from the representatives of 12 Caribbean countries for a meeting was totally bizarre particularly given those representatives are in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting this week.

Inevitably, since the row about this broke, the government has decided it needs to wind back a little, announcing that Theresa May will meet those representatives after all. At the same time, Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes gave an interview saying there had been some ‘terrible mistakes’ in these cases.

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