She ain't no Windrush hero

It's beyond infuriating to see Yvette Cooper present herself as some kind of Windrush hero, when she was behind Labour's decision to enable Theresa May's unlawfully racist Hostile Environment in 2014.

Aside from members of the Tory government that enacted Theresa May’s unlawful and life-ruining "Hostile Environment" there’s not really anybody more inappropriate to speak on the subject of the Windrush Scandal than Labour’s shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Back in 2014, when Theresa May’s unlawfully racist Hostile Environment came before parliament, Yvette Cooper was also serving as Labour’s shadow Home Secretary, meaning her fingerprints were all over Labour’s despicable decision to whip their MPs into abstaining, and allowing this horrifying legislation to glide through parliament virtually unopposed.

Had Labour actually opposed it at the time, rather than pandering to the extreme-right by sitting on their hands, there’s no guarantee that the legislation would have been defeated, because it would have required a substantial rebellion by the Tories’ Lib-Dem sidekicks too.

However, even if Labour had lost an attempt to block Theresa May’s racist scheming, they would have made it clear that the legislation was deeply controversial rather than rubber-stamping it through their inaction, and they would have given themselves the moral high ground to say that they always opposed it once the courts ruled it unlawful.

The "Hostile Environment" resulted in the deportation of scores of British citizens, with several of them actually dying in exile overseas.

Aside from the high profile deportation cases, thousands of other lives were ruined as a result of the Tory party forcing employers, medics, Jobcentre staff, bank employees, and landlords into becoming enforcers of this deeply racist legislation.

Thousands of British citizens were denied jobs, medical treatment, social security payments, banking services, and places to rent because they didn’t have the documents to prove that they’d come to the UK before the drawbridge was raised against Commonwealth British citizens in the 1970s.

It’s beyond infuriating to see Yvette Cooper’s self-congratulation over Labour’s Windrush policies, given that she was one of the key players in allowing it to happen in the first place.

She’s been talking about how she’s going to "turn the page" on the Windrush scandal and speed up the compensation process, despite knowing that her inaction back in 2014 helped enable the Tories’ systematically racist mistreatment in the first place.

And I don’t know how she dares single out Diane Abbott for praise over her Windrush campaigning.

Diane Abbott was one of only 18 MPs to vote against the "Hostile Environment" in 2014, and her contributions to the parliamentary debate clearly detailed how this legislation could and would be used to discriminate against Commonwealth Brits.

Had Yvette Cooper listened to Abbott’s prescient warnings at the time, she would have used her position as shadow Home Secretary to lead a labour Party fightback against the racist "Hostile Environment" rather than waving it through as a desperate effort to pander to the extreme-right.

Perhaps even more annoying than Yvette Cooper’s cynical efforts to whitewash her own complicity, is the absolute lack of critical analysis from Britain’s horrible media class.

The fact that Yvette Cooper was deeply involved in Labour’s decision to abstain on Theresa May’s unlawfully racist "Hostile Environment" is completely absent from the media coverage, and the reason is obvious.

These hacks know that Starmer is going to win the general election, and they’re unwilling to risk the political access they’ve been cultivating, by criticising the barefaced hypocrisy of one of Starmer’s inner circle.

So Labour’s complicity goes into the memory hole, and outlets like the Guardian allow Cooper to portray herself as one of the heroes of the Windrush scandal, rather than a willing enabler of it.

Please consider setting up a small monthly GoCardless subscription. These really help.