Coventry shows support for Windrush generation

The demonstration starting off from Friargate

Nearly 200 people marched from Friargate to Broadgate on Saturday 5th May in support of the ‘Windrush generation’.

Speakers attacked Tory government policy, most clearly expressed by Theresa May when Home Secretary in 2012 which aimed to “create a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants” and which resulted in appalling personal cases of detention and threatened deportation.

Coventry, it was noted, was built over the last century on a wave of different populations from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and most recently Eastern Europe. In the case of the’ Windrush generation’ they were invited after the Second World War to come and work in transport, factories and especially the NHS – ironically the Tory Minister of Health at the beginning of the 1960s who invited thousands of Caribbean workers to come and train as nurses, was Enoch Powell!

Speakers explained that the root cause of discrimination and racism in the 60s, 80s, and today was always the same – a way of dividing working people so that the rich, the employers and Tory politicians could more easily get their own way.

Now that Amber Rudd has gone, Teresa May must go too. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party must increase the pressure for an early general election so that the Tory policies of austerity and the “hostile environment” goes too. We need a new government, prepared to act in the interests of working people, which would reverse the acts which led to the detentions and deportations, end all racist immigration controls, and clear up the question of citizenship in the favour of the ‘Windrush generation’ now.