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Lenny Henry has revealed his own family could have faced deportation in the Windrush scandal as he launched a barbed attack on the Conservative government.
The comic-turned-actor, 64, said that his sister came to the UK on his dad’s Jamaican passport and the scandal could have forced ‘any of my older brothers or sisters’ to be deported to Jamaica.
And the Comic Relief founder criticised government leaders for ‘not doing anything’, saying anyone wanting to make change will have to ‘get round’ them.
He slammed the installation of Priti Patel and Suella Braverman – who are both from immigrant families – as Home Secretary, saying he thinks it is ‘cynical’.
‘This could have happened to any of my older brothers or sisters. My sister Kay came over on my dad’s Jamaican passport,’ he told the Times.
The comic-turned-actor, 64, said that his sister came to the UK on his dad’s Jamaican passport and the scandal could have forced ‘any of my older brothers or sisters’ to be deported to Jamaica. Pictured: Lenny Henry and his mother in 1975
The Comic Relief founder criticised government leaders for ‘not doing anything’, saying anyone wanting to make change will have to ‘get round’ them. He slammed the installation of Priti Patel and Suella Braverman – who are both from immigrant families – as Home Secretary, saying he thinks it is ‘cynical’. Pictured: Henry and partner Lisa Makin
Talking about the Patel and Braverman, he added: ‘That’s odd, isn’t it? It’s like, ‘put a brown face on it’. It’s very hurtful.
‘When you see brown people up there saying that stuff, it sends a chill into your heart. They’re being used, you know. It’s pretty cynical, I think.’
It comes as Henry, who was born in Dudley, near Birmingham, is set to open his playwriting debut about the Windrush scandal.
A one-man production, August in England will star the stand-up as British-Jamaican August Henderson, who faces deportation to a country he cannot remember.
The Windrush generation arrived from 1948 to 1973 to aid in rebuilding the nation after the Second World War.
Because the Caribbean was part of the Commonwealth, they were automatically British citizens when they arrived.
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But in 2017 it emerged that hundreds had been wrongfully detained, deported and denied legal rights.
Many – like Lenny Henry’s siblings – arrived on their parents’ passports and their landing cards had been destroyed so they did not have the documentation to prove their right to remain – as they were falsely said to be illegal immigrants.
Growing up, Henry has spoken about racial abuse he recieved that continued into his comedic career.
He says he has worked particularly hard because, as an immigrant, you think people will take your things away.
Since 2007, he has gained a degree in English Literature from the Open University, an MA in screenwriting and a PhD on the role of black people in the media.
Leaving school after failing his 11-plus, he said not having the education of his Oxbridge-educated colleagues made him feel inferior.
While he was critical of the government’s actions on the Windrush scandal, he also praised King Charles’ recent support of research into the slave trade.
He particularly hailed the Prince’s Trust supporting working-class people of colour, saying he thinks the monarch may be able to do something.
Henry grew up om a family with seven children: Hylton, Beverly, Seymour, Kay, Paul, Sharon and himself.
He won the talent show New Faces and was on the television at 16, supporting his family with money sent back from London.
Henry has previously said that it is ‘vital’ that we celebrate the Windrush generation, ahead of the 75th anniversary of their arrival this year.
‘It’s vital this year to celebrate the courage of those Windrush pioneers 75 years ago, who gave up the life they knew to seek a better one here in Britain,’ he told the Mirror.
‘They paved the way for those of us who have followed.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
