‘Stand together now’

 Unite delegate Lenford Vassell told the Labour Party conference today (September 25) of his own experience as a ‘Windrush baby’.

Both his parents were invited to the UK to help the country in their capacity as a nurse and a steelworker – as UK citizens.

Years after coming to this country, Lenford was forced to pay for his UK citizenship – something he found out only recently was totally unnecessary.

“What does it mean to be a citizen in this country?” he asked conference as he spoke in support of a composite on the Windrush scandal.

“What does it mean that working people – who have lived here for decades – can lose their homes, lose their jobs, lose their pensions, lose their health care?

“What does it mean that they can be hauled from their homes and imprisoned in a detention centre and wait to be deported to a country they may have never even visited?

“Make no mistake,” Lenford added. “The Windrush scandal was no accident. It wasn’t the result of some oversight or administrative error.

“This was planned. This was calculated. This was intended.”

Lenford told of three UK citizens who died before they could be repatriated from the Caribbean back to the UK following the Windrush Scandal revelations.

“They died in a country which was not their own,” he said. “The fact that Whitehall bureaucrats in the Home Office thought it was their home – simply because of the colour of their skin –well, conference, there’s a word for that.”

Lenford called on delegates to “reflect the finest traditions of our movement”.

“Let’s close ranks – UK citizens, European Citizens, Citizens of the World who have chosen to call this country their home,” he concluded to applause. “Let us stand together now. Our collective strength is more powerful than hollow promises.”