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UK elections and opportunities for CARICOM engagement

UK elections and opportunities for CARICOM engagement

Ambassador Curtis A. Ward

Amb. Curtis A. Ward

(15 July 2024) — Congratulations are in order to UK’s new prime minister the Hon. Keir Starmer on his Labour Party’s resounding victory and to the Hon. David Lammy on his appointment as UK’s foreign secretary. With the perception of a Labour Party-led UK government being more likely to be respective of the Commonwealth Caribbean concerns than was the previous Conservative Party government, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see CARICOM leaders jumping the line to offer congratulations. Neither would it be surprising to see CARICOM foreign ministers jostling to open communication with Mr. Lammy whose heritage is Guyanese. Some, in particular among Guyana’s leadership, already had pre-election engagement with Mr. Lammy, a member of the Guyanese diaspora.

Sir Keir Starmer –  UK Prime Minister

I should caution that while the combination of a UK Labour Party government and a foreign secretary with Caribbean heritage may augur well for CARICOM and the region, this won’t automatically translate into equity and fair treatment for the UK Jamaican and Caribbean diaspora community. For the past several years we have seen an increase in discrimination under successive Conservative Party governments, particularly gross discrimination and maltreatment against the Windrush generation and their descendants. And we have seen a significant rise in discrimination against immigration and immigrants, generally, in the UK, not seen since the Enoch Powell era. The UK is experiencing a high level of xenophobia not unlike other European countries and even more so in the United States. There will be no waving of the magic wand to change these mindsets overnight, but Mr. Starmer’s government can lead by example.

David Lammy – UK Foreign Secretary

As I have written elsewhere, anti-immigration and anti-immigrants’ policy is a central recurring theme in the U.S. Republican Party, and by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. Project 2025, a policy developed by the Heritage Foundation, Washington’s premier conservative think-tank, to guide a second Trump presidency, to keep immigrants of color out of America and for expelling millions who have been accorded some form of humanitarian relief such as those who have been offered temporary protected status (TPS), DACA, and other humanitarian programs offering hope of permanent residency. Reversal of Biden’s relief to immigrants and Trump’s plans for massive detention and deportation are at the center of the Project 2025 xenophobic agenda. More on the implications of Project 2025 for the Jamaican/Caribbean immigrant community and for the Caribbean region will be addressed in future analyses.

Back across the pond, the UK Caribbean diaspora community is looking for transformational changes by Mr Starmer’s government away from the former government’s policies, and particularly for fair treatment for the victims who were impacted by the Conservative Party’s harsh Windrush policy. They are expecting a complete reversal of measures implemented against the Windrush generation and their descendants. They are hoping Mr. Starmer’s government will implement the full recommendations of Wendy Williams’s ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’ (March 2020) much of which were discarded by the previous government. They view the Home Office, where the Windrush scandal began, as an impediment and would prefer to see this issue and related compensation managed by an independent commission. Caribbean governments should support them.

At the same time, there is very little optimism that the xenophobic environment will under go any significant changes, at least not in the short-term.

With Lammy as foreign secretary and a Labour Paty government, Caribbean governments also have an opportunity to give impetus to their reparation demands for redress of the effects of centuries of slavery, colonization and neo-colonization exploitation.

CARICOM has an opportunity to engage Mr. Lammy on these issues as well as on economic and, importantly, climate change resilient capacity building. The devastation in the wake of hurricane Beryl brings this to the forefront of the agenda. The UK foreign secretary should not be given a pass on any of these issues even if they do not fit squarely into his portfolio. He is a senior member of Mr. Starmer’s Cabinet. I suggest that as the UK lead interlocutor with Caribbean leaders, these issues must be a part of their bilateral conversations. That is, if Caricom leaders are serious about statements they all seem to make, from time to time, including about diaspora engagement priorities. Caribbean leaders often claim that their diaspora engagement includes ensuring the welfare of their diasporas; that they are not discriminated against by the governments of the countries in which they reside.

The Government of Jamaica National Diaspora Policy (GOJ-NDP) specifically sets out GOJ’s concern for the welfare of the Jamaican diaspora. According to the GOJ, the purpose of the NDP is to establish a framework to implement the GOJ’s two objectives, one of which is to promote diaspora “interests and well-being in the countries where they reside.” We often hear this repeated by Jamaican portfolio minister and government officials, more often to placate rather than backed by practical application. The NDP states that the GOJ is committed to implementing its diaspora policy “to ensure that its Foreign Policy and negotiations consider the issues and challenges being faced by the Diaspora population that may impede the achievement of their full potential.” The architect of Jamaica’s Foreign Policy and lead negotiator with Mr. Lammy, the honorable Kamina Johnson-Smith is also portfolio minister for diaspora affairs.

The UK Labour Party government, with Mr. Lammy serving as foreign secretary in Mr. Starmer’s Cabinet provides a great opportunity for minister Johnson Smith to engage the UK government on these issues at the highest political level. Hopefully, these entreaties will find a responsive interlocutor in Mr. Lammy and the government he represents.

While each Caribbean foreign minister individually is obligated to raise these issues when engaging with the UK foreign secretary at the bilateral level, this must also be a collective policy agenda issue for CARICOM and its Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), which has responsibility for coordinating CARICOM’s collective foreign policy. Foreign Minister Johnson Smith represents Jamaica on COFCOR, and to ensure credibility of Jamaica’s diaspora policy she must be proactive in garnering CARICOM-wide support on Caribbean diaspora issues. Many in the diaspora question the integrity of the GOJ implementation of its GDP and this is an opportunity for Johnson Smith to shore it up.

Mr. Lammy, in his first public statement, identified himself as a descendant of enslaved people. Signaling his priorities, he said, “We begin with a reset with Europe on climate and with the Global South….” He ended by saying, “Change begins now.” Meaningful change is expected!

© Curtis A. Ward

[An earlier edition of  this article was published in the In Focus section of Jamaica’s Sunday Gleaner on July 14, 2024.]

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About the author

Ambassador Curtis A. Ward

Ambassador Curtis A. Ward is a former Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the United Nations with Special Responsibility for Security Council Affairs (1999-2002) serving on the UN Security Council for two years. He served three years as Expert Adviser to the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee. He is an Attorney-at-Law and International Consultant with extensive knowledge and experience in national and international legal and policy frameworks for effective implementation of United Nations (UN) and other international anti-terrorism mandates; the legal and administrative requirements to effectively implement and enforce anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); extensive knowledge of the legal and regulatory requirements for effective implementation and enforcement of United Nations multilateral and U.S.-imposed unilateral sanctions; and the imperatives for Rule of Law and governance. He is a geopolitical and international security analyst, and a human rights, democracy, and anticorruption advocate.

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