Drawbridge Britain – Where Did the Hostile Environment Against Immigrants Come From?

n 1948, the HMS Windrush docked in Essex, carrying hundreds of British citizens from the Caribbean who had answered the call to come and live and work in the UK. Thousands more men, women and children soon followed.

Seventy years later, it emerged that our government had started denying healthcare and housing to some of these families, and even deporting people who had lived in the UK for decades, all under a policy called the hostile environment.

Russell Hargrave asks, What were the roots of this crisis, and how did the government get things so badly wrong?

Russell Hargrave is a freelance journalist, and the author of the book Drawbridge Britain (2018). He also works as a policy advisor on immigration and refugees with the Liberal Democrats.