Putting Up Resistance: How to Get Involved
Since the beginning of 2020 it seems like there has been just one tragedy after another. The pandemic. The government’s mishandling of it, causing over 120,000 deaths. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. The performative responses to the BLM protests. The murders of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, and the disgusting Met police officers who took selfies with their dead bodies. Police brutality in both the US and the UK. The murder of Sarah Everard. The UK becoming a fascist state (see: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill). The clear corruption of this government (77k on eyebrows?!). All of us have been affected in some way by the events of the…
Priti Patel and the Dangers of the Home Office
Another week, another example of despicable and dangerous behaviour from the Home Office. As you all ought to be aware, on 2 December a deportation flight to Jamaica took off. It was dubbed #Jamaica50 on Twitter and Instagram because 50 people were due to be deported. As campaigners such as BARAC UK rallied for public support to get the flight stopped, lawyers representing the deportees worked tirelessly and into the early hours of the morning of the 2nd to have those wrongfully put on that flight removed. When the flight took off, only 13 of the original 50 were on it. Let’s read that again. Only 13 people out of the…
Labour Leaks: 3 Reasons Why I, as a Black Woman, Can No Longer Support the Labour Party
WARNING: This is a very emotionally charged post. I am incensed about this particular topic and I am using this post as a form of catharsis. It is explicit. It is vitriolic. It is how I choose to express myself right now. If that’s not for you, look away. I won’t hold it against you, I promise. There have been four General Elections since I’ve been old enough to vote. I’ve never been wedded to one political party; I’ve always looked at what each party was promising at the time and decided based on that. Apart from my rule that I will never, EVER, vote Conservative (I would rather fuck…
Windrush: An Update
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Windrush Scandal is STILL a scandal. It is a scandal that has destroyed families: impoverishing them, separating them, causing them both mental and physical distress. It is a scandal that has claimed lives. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about you can read my posts about the scandal here, here and here. Given that such an egregious scandal is still ongoing, you would think it would be dominating the national conversation but oh no. You would think that it would at least be a feature during a General Election campaign, but there was barely even a whisper. You would…
#GE2019: Anti-Semitism and the Erasure of Minority Voices
The General Election is this week. Despite the fact that there are plenty of candidates standing for other parties, the reality facing us is that the real competition is between Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the Conservatives, ‘led’ by Boris Johnson. This has been, in my opinion, one of the nastiest election campaigns in recent history, and as such I have actively tried to stay away from it as I knew where my vote was going the minute the election was called. But among the many, many aspects of this election campaign that have seriously disturbed me, there is one issue that has really done so more than others, and…
National Windrush Day has passed. Where do we go from here?
Saturday 22 June saw the arrival of the UK’s first official Windrush Day, a day commemorating the arrival of British citizens from the Caribbean on the Empire Windrush in 1948, and celebrating the immense contribution the Windrush generation has made to British society and economy for the last 70+ years. Windrush Day also brought with it the announcement of a memorial dedicated to the Windrush generation in Waterloo station, where many members of the Windrush generation first arrived in London. The announcement was met with a mixed reception, with members of the community questioning the choice of location, criticizing the lack of consultation and, quite rightly, wondering where was…
The Windrush Scandal Isn’t Over: CALL TO ACTION
Last year, the news of the Windrush scandal shot into mainstream political discourse and, rightfully, became a subject of national outrage. Members of the Windrush generation – Caribbean people and their children who were invited here as British citizens to help rebuild Britain and fill labour shortages after World War II – suddenly found themselves being deported, fired, losing access to their benefits or pensions, losing their homes, access to healthcare and even access to their bank accounts. Some, who had travelled abroad to see friends or family, found themselves unable to return to the UK, stranded in the countries they’d gone to visit. Why? Because Theresa May, our soon-to-be former Prime…
Windrush Scandal: Why the Personal is Political
Below is an adapted version of a sermon I delivered at St. Peter de Beauvoir Town Church in May 2018. I know that everyone will know what the Windrush scandal is and how it came into being as there has been a lot of coverage of it in the news, so I won’t go into any detail about its history. Instead, I will start off by reinforcing the reality of the situation for those affected by the scandal – the impact of this injustice should never be forgotten. Despite numerous promises, platitudes and assurances from various government officials, scores of West Indians are in limbo, either stranded in the…
