Cricket, Windrush and Nationality Cricket is often portrayed as the ‘Gentlemen’s Game’ but the racism row that engulfed Yorkshire cricket has sullied the sport’s image immeasurably.
England and former Yorkshire cricket star Azeem Rafiq gave evidence to MPs about the abuse he had experienced in his career. Yorkshire County Cricket Club had initially found that no one would face any action over the allegations but the controversy wouldn’t go away and eventually, under pressure from fans, politicians and sponsors, the entire coaching team was forced to stand down. Read our blog by Callum Ferguson HERE.
Four years after the start of the compensation scheme, a report from the home affairs select committee found that just one in twenty of Windrush scandal victims have actually seen any money. The report called for the scheme to be taken out of the hands of the Home Office and said that of 15,000 eligible recipients only 3,000 had applied. Twenty-three eligible applicants have died before getting a payment, the committee found. The failings of the scheme had compounded injustices faced by the Windrush generation, with some applicants saying the process has become a source of further trauma rather than redress. The report recommended transferring the scheme from Priti Patel’s department to an independent organisation in order to “rebuild trust”.
I spoke to Novara Media. Watch HERE. As the nation obsessed about whether the Prime Minister broke covid rules last Christmas, his government pushed forward its Nationality and Borders Bill. The anti-refugee bill criminalises people who enter the UK ‘illegally’ and gives the Government the power to remove the citizenship from any of six million Britons, largely from minority ethnic communities, without even informing them. Almost 250,000 people have signed a petition demanding the removal of Clause 9 of the Bill which ROTA believes is another Windrush scandal in the making. We urge you to add your voice. Sign the petition HERE. Maurice Mcleod, ROTA |
