Theresa May's audacity

In March 2019 Theresa May's despicable 2014 Hostile Environment legislation was declared unlawful in a British court of law for the racist way it was used to discriminate against Windrush Brits.

This unspeakably vile piece of legislation was used to deny housing, employment, banking services, social security, and even life-saving medical treatment to black British citizens.

Scores of black Brits were even deported overseas under May's unbelievably outrageous "deport now and hear appeal later" principle. Several of these British deportees actually died in exile overseas.

When the Windrush scandal finally broke in 2018 May outright refused to take responsibility for the Hostile Environment rules she pushed through as Home Secretary, instead having Amber Rudd take the fall for it (before being rapidly bounced back into government to take over the DWP just a few months later).

Today Theresa May released a stomach-churningly hypocritical video praising the Windrush generation, banging on about Windrush day, and announcing a Windrush statue to be erected in Waterloo Station.

Theresa May and every single one of the MPs who voted in favour of her despicable Hostile Environment should never have the audacity to even utter the word "Windrush" unless it forms part of a profuse apology for their role in creating such a shameful national scandal.

But instead Theresa May and numerous others in the Westminster establishment class are using Windrush Day to pat themselves on the back, and to whitewash the pivotal roles they played in causing so much suffering.

Perhaps the only people rivalling Theresa May for audacity are the Lib-Dems who released a Windrush Day Tweet claiming that they would "Redouble [their] efforts to challenge the hostile immigration policies which created the Windrush Scandal".

Anyone reading Tweet this without knowing what a bunch of duplicitous tosspots the Lib-Dems are would probably imagine that May's Hostile Environment was passed despite vehement Lib-Dem objections.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality the current Lib-Dem leader Vince Cable voted in favour of it, his predecessor Tim Farron voted in favour of it, the new Lib-Dem leadership candidate Ed Davey voted in favour of it, and the other leadership candidate Jo Swinson joined the Labour right-wingers in abstaining in order to help it glide through parliament virtually unopposed.

Of the 57 Lib-Dem MPs at the time, just 3 had the decency to defy the party whip and vote against it (all of them departed from parliament now).

In fact the Lib-Dems were so keen on Theresa May's hostile environment that their MP Mark Hunter acted as one of the tellers for the "Aye" lobby!

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens did themselves proud by opposing this disgusting legislation from the beginning.

Labour, which was still in catastrophic late-stage Blairism mode, badly let themselves down by whipping their MPs to abstain so the legislation could pass without substantial opposition, with just six Labour MPs defying the whip to vote against it. This honourable six include Jeremy Corbyn (now party leader), Diane Abbott (now shadow Home Secretary) and John McDonnell (now Shadow Chancellor).

The fact that three of the honourable six now occupy the top three jobs demonstrate that Labour have moved on from this despicable episode in their history, but the party should be deeply ashamed that they abandoned the principles of social justice like this, and be vigilant of ever going back to the dark days of Blairites, Tory enabling abstentions, and horrifying anti-immigrant mugs.

The Tories and Lib-Dems have no such excuses. The Tories elevated the architect of this disgusting and unlawful legislation to lead their party, and the Lib-Dems elevated Vince Cable, who actively voted it through, as leader of their party.

Neither of these parties has shown an appropriate level of contrition for their roles in this institutional racism scandal, and now they're both pathetically rewriting history to pretend that they ever gave a shit about the Windrush Brits they actively legislated to discriminate against.

As a white British person I'm fucking outraged at the audacity of this Orwellian revisionism from Theresa May, the Tories, and their Lib-Dem enablers, and I can only try to imagine how black British citizens must feel to see these audacious bastards rewriting history to whitewash away their demonstrable track record of supporting racism.

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