Britain's politics of race

[mikesiva]

'Margaret Thatcher believed South Africa should be a “whites-only state”, it has been reported. The former head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Patrick Wright, has made a number of explosive claims in his account of the former Prime Minister’s time in office....Extracts from his diaries have been published in the Mail on Sunday and include claims that Ms Thatcher expressed a desire for a “pre-1910” South Africa. In the diary entry, Sir Patrick writes the conversation took place over a lunch he was invited to with Ms Thatcher. “She opened the conversation by thrusting a newspaper cutting about Oliver Tambo [ANC president] in front of us, saying that it proved that we should not be talking to him… She continued to express her views about a return to pre-1910 South Africa, with a white mini-state partitioned from their neighbouring black states.” When Sir Patrick questioned the desire and said it would be an extension of apartheid, he said "she barked: 'Do you have no concern for our strategic interests?'”'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 71356.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mikesiva]

By the early 1980s groups such as the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, and grassroots publications including London Labour Briefing had concluded that Labour needed to be more representative of the country it sought to govern. Only when black people, women, gay men and lesbian women played a key role in creating policy, only when minorities were represented in Parliament, and throughout government, and the party was democratised would Labour be able to build an economy that truly worked for all. In practice this meant that Benn and his supporters threw their weight behind the “black sections”, which aimed to empower ethnic minorities within the Labour party; openly gay candidates, the demand for all-women shortlists, and measures such as the mandatory reselection of MPs.

Labour’s debate around black sections highlighted differences between radicals such as Corbyn and his mentor Benn on the one hand, and Neil Kinnock and supporters of Militant on the other. The campaign for black sections emerged in 1983, as black activists sought ways to influence the direction of the party.

Campaigners argued that Labour’s black members should have the right to organise a Section with a formal voice at all levels of the Party. Women and students already had Sections with representatives on the National Executive Committee; black activists wanted the same. Leading figures in the campaign for Black Sections, such as Diane Abbott, argued that Labour’s traditional emphasis on “universal” benefits and services had tended to advantage white traditional families, rather than working women, lone parents, black people, or those working in service industries.

Linda Bellos, vice chair of the Black Sections Campaign, argued that black sections were essential to guarantee that the party was responsive to the concerns of black voters. The campaign also organised to ensure that Labour selected black parliamentary candidates, and increased the representation of black people in local government.

Informal black sections formed quickly in Vauxhall, Hackney and Lambeth in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and other UK cities. Black sections were open to all people who had been historically oppressed by colonialism. In some areas, Black sections were predominantly African-Caribbean, in others largely Bengali; Cypriots were also welcomed as comrades. This understanding of black as a “political colour” reflected the orientation of earlier British movements such as the Black Panthers and the Black Unity and Freedom Party.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_ ... 72021.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Gils]

Those black labour activists seem to inadvertantly be responsible for doing the heavy groudwork thats allowed the LGBT agenda of today to be at the forefront of most conversations about civil rights.

[mikesiva]

Far-right terrorists pose an “organised and significant” threat to the UK, the county’s most senior terror officer has warned while revealing that four plots have been foiled in the past year.

Mark Rowley, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, made the figure public for the first time to “illustrate the growth of right-wing terrorism”.

“The right-wing terrorist threat is more significant and more challenging than perhaps the public debate gives it credit for,” he said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 29876.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mikesiva]

Commonwealth citizens who have lived in Britain for decades after arriving as children are being made “destitute and stateless” due to the government’s hostile environment policies, politicians and diplomats are warning.

A meeting at the Jamaican High Commission on Thursday will see politicians, diplomats and campaigners demand that ministers provide an immediate remedy for a “developing situation” in which, due to changes in the immigration system, Caribbean immigrants are being deemed “illegal immigrants”.

It has emerged in recent months that Caribbean nationals who came to Britain between 1948 and 1973 with the “windrush” generation are being denied access to NHS healthcare, losing their jobs and even being threatened with deportation.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 00236.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mikesiva]

Prime Minister Theresa May will seek to reassure Caribbean leaders later that the Windrush generation will not be deported over paperwork issues.

The government has apologised after it emerged that some people who arrived from the Commonwealth decades ago as children were now being incorrectly identified as illegal immigrants.

The home secretary has announced a new taskforce to help those affected.

Mrs May will talk to the leaders at a Commonwealth meeting in London later.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43792411" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Finally, a climbdown from the government's horrendous treatment of the Windrush generation....

[mikesiva]

Ex-Home Office employees said they hoped taskforce staff would be more sensitive in their handling of claims. One long-term former employee, who worked for the Home Office for many years in Liverpool, told the Guardian there had been a stark change among immigration staff‘s behaviour following Theresa May’s announcement of “hostile environment” immigration regulations when she was home secretary.

“The introduction of the hostile environment policy meant the mentality was: ‘I’m going to say no, unless you can prove me wrong.’ Whereas before we’d been a lot more lenient towards the Commonwealth immigrants. We had no problem about going after everyone else, but the Commonwealth immigrants had always been a different kettle of fish,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“That changed about five or six years ago with the hostile environment. Some of the immigration people welcomed it. There was a ’gotcha attitude’ – some people enjoyed it; I didn’t like that.”

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, appeared to acknowledge that this newly hardened culture within the Home Office was becoming problematic on Monday when she apologised for the “appalling” actions of her own department towards some Windrush-era citizens who have struggled to prove their right to live in the UK, and recognised that the Home Office had “lost sight of individuals” and become “too concerned with policy”.

The Liverpool ex-Home Office worker said there was a younger generation of immigration employees who were more aggressive in their attitude to undocumented Windrush-generation residents struggling to establish their right to remain in the UK. “People who were coming into the department were new and didn’t have the background knowledge about immigration in the 1960s that I had,” he said.

“I was saying to them: ‘Look they’re more British than you! How can you, a 27-year-old fellow, refuse a 54-year-old fellow, and say he’s not entitled to remain in a country he’s lived in for 51 years? It is madness. It upset me and a few of the older staff members when they started saying to these fellows: we want four pieces of information per year you’ve been here.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ding-cards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is the real issue...not the landing cards, and who destroyed them, but the hostile environment in the Home Office.

[mikesiva]

Theresa May is facing controversy over the case of Albert Thompson, a Londoner denied free NHS cancer treatment despite having lived in the UK for 44 years, after he disputed the prime minister’s assertion to parliament that he would now receive the care he needed.

Amid the continued fallout over the way some members of the Windrush generation, who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean mainly as children, have been asked to prove their immigration status despite having the right to live in the UK, May was challenged about Thompson’s case at prime minister’s questions.

Jeremy Corbyn said May had declined to help when the Labour leader used a PMQs in March to mention Thompson, who was asked to pay £54,000 for prostate cancer treatment, in a case uncovered by the Guardian.

May rejected this, saying: “Clinicians have been looking at Mr Thompson’s case, and he will be receiving the treatment that he needs.”

But Thompson said he had not yet received any official confirmation. “No one has gotten in touch with me yet to tell me about anything regarding my treatment, including when I’ll get it,” Thompson – not his real name – said.

Thompson’s MP, Chuka Umunna, told the Commons later that he believed May had misled the Commons. Using a point of order to intervene, the Labour MP said: “That is incorrect. He needs radiotherapy treatment, but my constituent hasn’t received his treatment.

“If there are any plans that have been made for him to get this treatment, then he certainly has not been informed of it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... t-thompson" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MarcusGarveyLives]

Mother of Windrush citizen blames passport problems for his death (click for more)

Windrush mother blames immigration problems for son's death (click for more)

[MarcusGarveyLives]

Former Middlesex fast bowler in immigration limbo for seven years (click for more)