West Ham Online

northbankfrank wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 11:17 I see One Sunny Day's racist baiting has got a couple of nibbles.

None of the postwar Caribbean immigrants were invited to come to Britain, least of all those aboard the Empire Windrush, a troop transport ship en route from Australia to Britain via Jamaica. Because she was expected to leave Kingston under capacity, her operator advertised heavily in the three weeks before her arrival that they would offer private passage to the United Kingdom for £28 10s – around half the usual price. The novelty of several hundred Jamaicans voyaging across the Atlantic was so great that a Pathé newsreel crew arrived to film the passengers disembarking in Britain– a detail which explains a significant part of the event’s later prominence.

Nobody at the time was particularly happy with the news. The British government was completely unaware of the imminent arrivals until it was too late to stop them. In a debate in Parliament it was noted that there would be no guarantee the Windrush’s passengers would be able to find work, and Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee suggested redirecting the Windrush to East Africa.

Civil servants from the Colonial Office were dispatched to the Caribbean to orchestrate campaigns explaining that jobs in the UK were scarce, conditions were poor (rationing remained in place until 1954 for food, furniture, fuel, and clothing), and immigrants could not be guaranteed employment or housing (of which there was a chronic shortage).

Nevertheless, neither the British nor colonial governments had any power to prevent Commonwealth migration after the British Nationality Act (1948) formalized the right of all colonial subjects to settle in Britain. The framers intended this as a symbolic gesture against decolonization; they did not expect it to lead to mass migration.

At the heart of the Windrush myth is the claim of a postwar labor shortage. In fact, postwar Britain was a country with a pronounced labor surplus. Accordingly, between 1946 and 1960, 1.5 to 2 million people – 3.2-4.3% of the population – left the country, mostly for the Dominions and the USA. Despite Winston Churchill’s remonstrations – he described emigrants as “rats leaving a sinking ship” and pleaded “we cannot spare you!” – statements often repeated today as evidence of a labor shortage, this emigration was encouraged by both the Conservatives and Labour and fares were heavily subsidized. In the case of Australia, passage was available for just £10, a third of what passengers on the Empire Windrush had paid.

XKhammer wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 18:23

Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 12:54 OSD would celebrate Bumsrush Day if he/she thought it would get them attention.

You just can't help yourself can you!
Bumrush Day????
Not even a little bit funny,l hope you say that to a West Indian and have your racist teeth knocked out 

only1billybonds wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 11:50 I have family members who are part of or descendants of the 'Windrush generation'.
In my eyes, they are just people,no need to hang labels on them. My problem is with the filth we are importing who mainly end up in the big city's and London being the biggest of them all suggests that there is more filth there than anywhere else.
And yes,Khan is a despicable, lying, self obsessed piece of shit.

Sydney_Iron wrote: ↑23 Jun 2025, 02:19 Good luck to the West Indian community, yes, they got a load of stick when they arrived and a lot of that was racist and discriminatory as fuck, thankfully we have moved on from those days.

They also had the same kind of values and outlook on life, I'm not especially religious but many had strong Christain principles of right and wrong and a culture not dissimilar to that of the UK/US/Western Europe/Aus unlike some of the people we now seem to import en masse in Western countries or allow to enter illegally with a culture so different to our own its changing the whole fabric and dynamic of society and not in a good way.


 

XKhammer wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 18:23

Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 12:54 OSD would celebrate Bumsrush Day if he/she thought it would get them attention.

You just can't help yourself can you!
Bumrush Day????
Not even a little bit funny,l hope you say that to a West Indian and have your racist teeth knocked out 

Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑22 Jun 2025, 12:54 OSD would celebrate Bumsrush Day if he/she thought it would get them attention.