Winston Churchill promoted post-war racist policies that helped form the Tory hostile environment behind the recent Windrush scandal, a TV historian claims.
The former PM may have steered Britain to victory against the Nazis, but – according to David Olusoga – he tried to whip up working class resentment against Caribbean immigrants arriving to help rebuild our country.
Churchill even proposed the election slogan “keep England white”, previously unseen files reveal.
David said: “That clamour [against immigrants] didn’t exist but Churchill wanted to push legislation before public opinion made that shift.
The Windrush scandal didn’t appear out of nowhere.
“The hostile environment towards Caribbean immigrants has been 70 years in the making. In fact it began before the Empire Windrush even docked in 1948.”
After the war, Britain had invited members of the Commonwealth to make a new life here and help with the chronic labour shortage.
On June 21, 1948, 492 skilled and educated West Indians – including many who had fought against Hitler – arrived on the Windrush.
In a documentary, David opens secret government papers to show evidence of Churchill’s racist policies. The politician was determined to show the new arrivals were causing “social problems”.
David, who is half Geordie, half Nigerian, said: “I think there is a very intense feeling about Churchill which is part of a very intense feeling about the war and this moment and this man have become sacred in all sorts of ways. But there is another side to Churchill.
“His ideas were those of someone born of his class and time and who had very clear views about Jewish people, Indian people, people of African descent and both things can be true at the same time.
“If you are interested in history rather than heroics it shouldn’t be difficult seeing that someone was capable of great acts and terrible things and held noble principles in his mind but also things we now find abhorrent.
“I don’t see why if you have a grown-up view of history we can’t hold these two things to be true at the same time.”
- The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files is on BBC2, Monday at 9pm.
