This Windrush chaos is a national disgrace

COULD the Home Office have made a more humiliating hash of dealing with the toxic row over the Windrush generation?

As soon as it became clear that Caribbean migrants who have lived, worked, paid taxes and raised families here for 50 years or more were being stripped of their residency rights, ministers should have acted immediately to redress this cruel injustice.

Instead, they stalled and vacillated, giving an impression of callous indifference to the plight of decent people who – because of bureaucratic pettifogging – have lost their jobs, been denied benefits and NHS care and even been forced out of Britain.

To compound the chaos, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes admitted yesterday that some may already have been deported. But astonishingly, they didn’t know how many, or who they were. It was an utter fiasco.

The Windrush generation were invited here to help post-war reconstruction and have hugely enriched our cultural life. To even consider deporting them – especially when countless foreign criminals are allowed to live here with impunity – is a grotesque betrayal. And the Prime Minister made matters worse by initially refusing to meet representatives of 12 Caribbean countries, anxious to discuss the matter (a decision she thankfully later reversed).

A degree of common sense prevailed yesterday – but only after the Daily Mail launched a campaign supporting the Windrush generation and 140 MPs of all parties signed a letter demanding action.

Miss Rudd apologised for the ‘wrong and appalling situation’ and said a task force is being set up to ensure that no one else will be deported or lose rights if they can show they have been here since before 1971.

But this shambles is far from over. There must be compensation for those who incurred legal fees to avoid deportation, or lost their jobs after being labelled illegal immigrants. Any who have been unfairly deported should also be invited back.

Yes, this has been a truly unedifying spectacle, which at any time would be profoundly embarrassing. In the week when Commonwealth leaders are gathered in London to discuss that organisation’s future, it’s a national disgrace.