Deport Theresa May From Office

Fleet Street Fox (even though everyone knows her real name) writes: 

Amber Rudd will probably get the blame. She is the person currently in charge of the Home Office, and who failed to spot the ticking timebomb of the Queen meeting 53 Commonwealth leaders just as her government deported their former citizens. That's not a smiley photograph for what was going to be the 91-year-old monarch's farewell party for her former colonies.

But while it's Amber's fault she did nothing to halt the PR disaster, she is not responsible for the international disgrace that is the Windrush scandal. It's an anodyne phrase to describe the forced removal of invited guests, who all just happen to be brown. But it was Theresa May who was Home Secretary when the evidence of their arrival was burned in 2010, and it was Theresa May who later demanded those guests produce the evidence. 

The landing cards of those migrants - many of whom wore their Sunday best for the journey, after they were asked to come to Britain to rebuild our post-war economy - were destroyed as part of an office move. But staff were already using those cards to settle residency claims, and they warned bosses not to do it. They went ahead with it anyway, because in this day and age who still needs old bits of paper? 

The UK Border Agency, at the time, employed 23,500 staff in 130 countries. Cabinet minister Matt Hancock today claimed it was "independent", as though Theresa could not be held responsible. Yet she has been repeatedly called to account for UKBA activities in Parliament and before Select Committees. She was criticised for a lack of oversight, named as responsible for the departure of its boss, and authorised a £100,000 settlement of his constructive dismissal claim. 

It was Theresa who, in 2012, declared an intention "to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration". She set up a task force known as the Hostile Environment Working Group to force other parts of the state could do UKBA's job - GPs, schools, nurses, benefits staff, letting agents, banks, to demand proof of residency. And at the same time it was Theresa who oversaw £500m of "savings" at the UKBA and 22% staff cuts. 

In 2013 the agency was accused by MPs of "catastrophic leadership failure", with 97% of complaints upheld. The cuts meant a massive backlog in cases, poor decisions, and huge injustice. And it was Theresa who, despite being responsible for it all, said the way to fix it was to make it part of the Home Office so she could be responsible for it. It was Theresa who, that same year, sent out 'Go Home' vans. It was Theresa's department that produced advice for people deported to Jamaica advising them to put on an accent and "try to be Jamaican". 

It was Theresa who steered the 2014 Immigration Act onto the statute books. It was Theresa who was Home Secretary when those first employment and benefit checks saw the paperless children of Windrush migrants thrown out of work and out of homes, off emergency housing lists and out of the welfare safety net. It was Theresa who has been asked, for years, by refugee and migrant charities to close the loophole. Whose department was laid siege to by community law projects acting for those who could not afford lawyers. Who still doesn't know if the people she ignored are here or there. 

It was Theresa who in 2010 raised the price of APPLYING for indefinite leave to remain to £849. By 2015 the fee was £1,500 and today it's £2,297 - not for a family, but for every member of it. It is Theresa who, we must assume, had no idea that immigrants and their children generally have little money, little need of a passport, and therefore big reasons not to apply for a status they already had.

It was Theresa who ignored the first local and national stories of deportations last year, in print and on television. It was Theresa who did not care about the Windrush generation's problems when they were written about in The Guardian months ago. It was Theresa who was PM when Black History Month launched a petition demanding an immigration amnesty for the Windrush migrants in October, and which despite passing 170,000 signatures is still being "considered' for Parliamentary debate. 

It was Theresa who last month refused to intervene in the case of a man who'd been caught up in regulations introduced last October to make hospitals check residency status of patients, and was told to stump up £54,000 for urgent cancer treatment despite being resident for 44 years. It was Theresa who three days ago refused to meet the Commonwealth leaders when they were all in London, and caved in only after the Daily Mail declared it a scandal.

It is Theresa who has a nasty habit of blaming other people for her own mistakes, and whose career-wide carpet has so much muck swept under it looks more like a cobbled road to hell. And it is Theresa whose department and government has ILLEGALLY deported British citizens, who charged people to apply for a legal residency that they ALREADY had, and IGNORED complaints raised over years by charities, lawyers, and those bits of the media she does not care for.

The fact the people who have suffered as a result of Theresa May's "really hostile environment" are browner, poorer and less able to be heard renders her claims of being a champion of social justice utterly laughable. That those who got the letters, lost the jobs, were rendered homeless, were people who had already endured decades of harassment, racism, poor opportunity and abuse is horrific enough. 

The awe-inspiring thing is that guests treated so appallingly for so long, only to be denied, belittled and betrayed in the name of cheap, racist politics, still want to be part of a country that has shown them such atrocious manners. But what really rankles is that the one person who bears responsibility for so much of it is incapable of either accepting or fixing it.

Theresa May might not be a racist - but she's presided over the most racist, disgraceful abomination in recent British history. She allowed it to grow to such massive proportions that it's now a stain upon our national character. Were politics operating properly, rather than being obsessed with delivering Brexit at all costs [war in Syria, more like], she'd be in such a hostile environment that she'd be out of work by Friday. But it'll probably be Amber Rudd's fault, because she voted Remain and won't get in a car with Boris Johnson.