Ja-born man returns to the UK after 25-year exile

BIRMINGHAM:

After a 25-year forced exile in Poland, 72-year-old George Lee, a member of the Windrush generation, returned to the United Kingdom last week, arriving at Birmingham Airport.

Lee, born in Clarendon, Jamaica, arrived in the UK in 1961 at the age of eight years old to join his parents. Raised in London, he was educated, employed, and settled in Britain, later marrying and becoming a father.

In 1997, facing difficulties securing employment in the UK, Lee accepted a two-year English teaching contract in Poland, under the clear understanding that he would return home to Britain after its completion.

However, when he visited the British Embassy in Warsaw to arrange his return, he was told he had no entitlement to re-enter the UK. Despite his decades-long lawful residence, he was denied the right to return – and was effectively exiled.

He says he has since lived in Poland under extremely difficult circumstances, battling bureaucratic limbo, isolation, and the long-lasting effects of the UK’s hostile environment policy.

But thanks to the persistent efforts of two organisations in the UK, the Windrush National Organisation, led by Bishop Dr Desmond Jaddoo MBE, and the Windrush Movement UK, Lee has successfully had his status recognised under the Windrush Scheme and was welcomed back to the UK after a quarter-century in enforced exile.

“This return is a moment of justice long overdue,” said Bishop Jaddoo. “George Lee’s case shows the international cost of the Windrush scandal and the urgent need to put right the wrongs committed against people like him, who were abandoned by the very country they helped build.”

New dimension of Windrush scandal

Bishop Jaddoo further noted: “Mr Lee’s ordeal highlights a new dimension to the Windrush scandal, as George was effectively exiled in a third-party country, which was neither his country of origin nor his home. In addition, his repeated attempts to access assistance from the British consulates in Kraków and Warsaw were met with indifference. He was turned away, and no records of his approach were apparently kept. Sadly, this is not an uncommon experience.

“This entire episode demands further scrutiny, particularly around the failure of diplomatic support, and it shows the urgent need for greater international engagement, which must be led by organisations such as the Windrush National Organisation.”

Upon meeting Lee at Birmingham Airport, Bishop Jaddoo greeted him with the words, “Welcome home.” Lee responded, “I’m back”.

Lee described his experience in deeply personal terms: “As a child growing up in Jamaica, we looked up to Britain. I was excited when I came to the UK. I was educated here worked, raised a family and now, I feel utterly betrayed by Britain.”

He continued: “Every day for the past 25 years, I woke up with uncertainty. In Poland, I was classed as a citizen of nowhere. I felt like I had no value, as though my life didn’t matter. I had to sleep at night with one eye open, not knowing what would happen next, because I effectively had nowhere to go.”

“I haven’t been back to Jamaica since arriving in the UK as a child, and now, even as I return to Britain, I realise I’ve spent more than half my life here and yet I was treated as though I didn’t belong. I’m still asking myself: why did this happen to me? All I did was accept a job overseas. I wasn’t being idle, I wanted to work.”

“I want justice, not just for me, but for the many others still stuck abroad, forgotten. I have a right to be here,” Lee insisted. “I was born British when Jamaica was still a British colony. I came here on my aunt’s British passport, only to be told decades later that I wasn’t a citizen and had all my rights taken away. I want those rights back.”

The Windrush scandal, which came to light in 2018, revealed that hundreds and possibly thousands of legal UK residents, primarily from Caribbean countries, were wrongfully detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, or actually removed from the country.

Many had lived in the UK for decades, having arrived as children under the 1948 British Nationality Act, which gave them the right to settle in the UK as subjects of the British Empire.

The scandal sparked national outrage and led to the resignation of then Home Secretary Amber Rudd. The government launched the Windrush Compensation Scheme and the Windrush Scheme to confirm or restore citizenship status. However, both schemes have faced widespread criticism for delays, low payouts, bureaucratic barriers, and a lack of trust among victims.

Bishop Jaddoo said: “The fact that Mr Lee was lost in the system for over two decades, and only now being allowed to return home, shows just how far we still have to go. This is not just a historic injustice. It’s a current, global one. We must demand not just apologies, but real, urgent reform.”