Diane Abbott MP: 'All roads on the Windrush scandal lead back to Theresa May'

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott told today’s Good Morning Britain that it’s right Amber Rudd has resigned. But insisting the Labour party is not calling for an amnesty, she wouldn’t be drawn on what the party’s policy is.

Diane explained: “It’s right that Amber Rudd has gone and really why she had to go was because of the Windrush scandal and it happened on her watch. But of course all roads on the Windrush scandal lead back to Theresa May because an ill thought out hostile environment strategy was really something that in the end she was the author of.”

Asked if there should be targets for removing illegal immigrants, she said: “Amber Rudd’s resignation was really about taking ministerial responsibility for the Windrush scandal. As for targets, of course the Home Office should have targets for specific areas of activity. For instance, we should have a target for removing people that are in prison but the judge has directed they be deported. We have no such target and many of those people don’t get deported. That is wrong. The problem with the targets that Theresa May was responsible for [is that] they were too broad, they were too general, they didn’t address specific policy problems and that is why the Windrush generation got caught up in them.”

Asked how to deal with immigration fairly she said: “We don’t so much need an aggressive policy; we need an efficient policy. Many of these illegal immigrants are actually overstayers. They’re people who came here as students and overstayed. Or people that came for a visit and overstayed. I believe one of the things we have to have is an immigration nationality department that is properly staffed, which is much more efficient and doesn’t just change policy on a sixpence because of some political row.”