On the 75th anniversary of Windrush, we want compensation not commemoration

The scandalous injustice of Windrush – that Black British citizens who had every right to remain in the United Kingdom were classed as ‘illegal immigrants’ and criminals – continues to be a painful legacy for thousands still waiting for compensation due to them, writes Noah Anthony Enahoro

The victims of the British political and legal system require justice (PA Archive)

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury Docks on 22 June 1948. On board were nearly 500 British Caribbeans from the West Indies. It’s also the fifth year that Windrush Day – aimed at recognising and remembering those who arrived in 1948, their descendants, and their legacies – will be commemorated.

While we use today to remember the fight, plight, history, and long-lasting impact of the Windrush Generation, we must ask if we are, as a country, really in a place to celebrate this occasion without also mourning things that have happened since?

The “Windrush generation” (those who migrated from the Caribbean between 1948 to 1971) arrived after the passing of the 1948 British Nationality Act, which conferred Commonwealth Citizenship on British subjects who lived in the Commonwealth. The Act gave them the right to enter, live and work in the United Kingdom. Children who arrived under this act were not required to show documentation, as they would enter as children of British Commonwealth subjects. Tragically, it would be these very children that would find themselves victims, decades later, of what we now call the “Windrush scandal”.