UK's Lammy likens treatment of Turkish businesspeople to Windrush scandal

Former British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Sunday criticized the Home Office's handling of permanent residency applications from Turkish businesspeople, comparing their treatment to the Windrush scandal and calling for immediate action. "The Home Office's treatment of Turkish businesspeople applying for ILR (indefinite leave to remain) through the Ankara Agreement is outrageous and reminiscent of the Windrush Scandal," Lammy wrote on US social media platform X. "Callous and careless mistakes are being made with devastating impacts.

The Home Office must act now," he added. His remarks followed a report by The Guardian on Sunday revealing a sharp increase in refusals of ILR applications from Turkish nationals holding European Community Association Agreement (ECAA) visas. According to the newspaper, hundreds of applicants have been denied permanent residency since the beginning of 2026, while approvals have fallen from several thousand in previous years to just a few hundred.

The report documented cases involving alleged administrative errors and requirements not included in immigration rules, leaving some applicants facing removal despite having established businesses and families in Britain. Home Office figures obtained through a freedom of information request showed that applications undergoing administrative review rose from 145 in 2025 to 395 between January and mid-August 2026, the newspaper reported.

The Home Office maintains that immigration rules governing the applications have not changed. The Windrush scandal was a major British immigration scandal that emerged in 2018, when it was revealed that people who had lived legally in the UK for decades had been wrongly classified as illegal immigrants. Many of those affected were members of the Windrush generation, people who arrived in Britain from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973, often as children, to live and work.