Vice Chancellor to participate in debate on Windrush generation

The Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, will participate in discussions on the ongoing cases concerning the Windrush generation mainly Commonwealth nationals, including those from the Caribbean, who came to Britain between 1948 and 1973.
The UWI in a statement said that Professor Beckles had been specially invited by the British Library to participate in the event and will on Friday deliver the keynote lecture themed, “British Trade in Black Labour: The Windrush Middle Passage”, as part of the Talks and Discussions series at The British Library
It said that on Saturday, Professor Beckles, an economic historian as well as chair of the Caribbean Commission on Reparations, is expected to give a lecture entitled, The Windrush Legacy: Rights and Reparations, at the Brixton Library.
The lectures follow an international discourse on the challenges and threat of deportation of the Windrush generation, which took the spotlight at the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London in April, the release said.
Earlier this year, the he British government said Commonwealth nationals would have their status formalised following the controversy that erupted over the so-called undocumented United Kingdom (UK) immigrants.
The government apologised for the change in immigration rules even as opposition legislators complained of people being illegally deported.
The government said that the citizenship offer would apply not just to the families of Caribbean migrants who came to the UK between 1948 and 1973 but anyone from other Commonwealth nations who settled in the UK over the same period.
Professor Beckles said he was honoured to be asked by the British Library and the Brixton Lambeth Community to speak as a subject matter expert, as well as from the perspective of his own circumstance as a child of the Windrush generation.