Reform Bills and Republic Dreams: Jamaica’s Dual Constitutional Moment

Quarterly Jamaica Windrush & Diaspora Update  |  Publication date: 3 July 2024  |  Period covered: January–June 2024

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Key Developments at a Glance

• Jamaica’s Constitutional Reform Committee publishes its long-awaited two-phase report.
• Constitution (Amendment) (Republic of Jamaica) Bill formally introduced to parliament.
• UK general election called for 4 July, with Windrush Commissioner pledge in Labour manifesto.
• Windrush compensation scheme enters sixth year with growing pressure for independent oversight.
• Windrush Day 2024 marks 76th anniversary with calls to accelerate outstanding justice.
• King’s College London research identifies structural failings in compensation scheme design.

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KINGSTON / LONDON — The first half of 2024 brought Jamaica’s most detailed constitutional statement of republican intent since independence, alongside growing impatience in Windrush communities as Britain’s compensation scheme entered its sixth year of operation without an independent commissioner at its helm. Against a backdrop of a British general election called for the final day of this reporting period, the stakes for both Jamaica’s diaspora and the Windrush generation felt higher than they had in years.

Jamaica’s Constitutional Reform Report: The Road to Republic, Mapped

The publication of the Constitutional Reform Committee’s report in May 2024 was the most significant domestic constitutional event Jamaica had seen since the committee’s establishment. The report outlined a two-phase approach to Jamaica’s transition from constitutional monarchy to republic. Phase 1 would cover the most fundamental changes: the repatriation of the Jamaican constitution, the abolition of the constitutional monarchy, the establishment of the Republic of Jamaica and all amendments to the constitution’s deeply entrenched provisions that require a referendum to alter. Phase 2 would deal with subsequent structural reforms arising from the new republican framework.

The report was the product of extensive public consultation, including engagement with diaspora communities in the United Kingdom and North America who were invited to submit their views on Jamaica’s constitutional future. The committee engaged with legal scholars, civil society organisations, trade unions and community groups across all fourteen parishes, as well as with Jamaicans abroad for whom the question of the island’s constitutional identity carries deep personal resonance.

Following the report’s publication, the Constitution (Amendment) (Republic of Jamaica) Bill was formally introduced to parliament — the most concrete legislative step yet taken towards removing the British monarch as Jamaica’s head of state. The bill’s introduction was welcomed by republican advocates including Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the Jamaica Labour Party but drew guarded responses from the opposition People’s National Party, which reiterated its position that a republican transition must simultaneously remove the UK Privy Council as Jamaica’s final court of appeal. Without the two-thirds parliamentary majority that cross-party agreement would provide, the bill’s passage remained uncertain.

Windrush Compensation: Six Years In, Still Under Scrutiny

As the Windrush Compensation Scheme marked the passing of five years since its launch in April 2019, the scheme remained a source of both relief and frustration. By mid-2024, the scheme had paid approximately £94 million to claimants — a substantial sum, but one that still fell well short of the Home Office’s own estimate that total payouts could reach £165 million or more. A significant number of claims remained in processing, and advocacy organisations continued to report delays, complex evidence requirements and inadequate support for claimants navigating the system without legal assistance.

Research published by King’s College London in the first half of 2024 identified a range of structural failings in the scheme’s design, including a low overall success rate, the absence of legal aid, the high burden of proof placed on applicants and the limited avenues of appeal available to challenge what researchers characterised as arbitrary decision-making. The findings echoed a March 2024 factsheet published by the Home Office — which showed 8,800 claims made with 2,600 payments completed — and raised questions about the gap between the numbers of people estimated to have been affected and those who had actually come forward to claim.

For Jamaican claimants specifically, the Home Office’s outreach remained limited. The two-phased media campaign conducted in Jamaica between October 2022 and March 2023 had raised awareness, but independent assessors noted that the campaign’s reach was insufficient given the scale of Jamaican participation in the Windrush generation. Approximately 453 Jamaican-nationality claimants were recorded on the scheme, a figure that campaigners argued likely understated the true number of Jamaican-connected individuals entitled to claim.

Windrush Day 2024: Seventy-Six Years and Counting

On 22 June 2024, the United Kingdom marked the 76th anniversary of the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks — the sixth annual Windrush Day since it was formally established as a national commemoration in 2018. In a year dominated by the UK’s approaching general election, the commemoration took on a political dimension, with the major parties using the occasion to reiterate their respective positions on Windrush justice.

Labour, whose manifesto had pledged a Windrush Commissioner and more effective administration of the compensation scheme, used Windrush Day to highlight what it described as the Conservative government’s failure to implement the Wendy Williams Lessons Learned Review in full. The Conservatives pointed to the total amount paid out and argued that the scheme was making genuine progress. Windrush community groups and advocacy organisations, including Justice for Windrush and Windrush Lives, rejected both arguments as inadequate, calling for structural reform, independent administration and meaningful legal support for claimants.

Windrush Day events took place across England, with commemorations in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester involving schools, museums, cultural organisations and local authorities. In Jamaica, the day was marked with less official ceremony but with growing media attention as the reparations debate and the question of the island’s relationship with its colonial history became increasingly prominent in national conversation.

Britain Goes to the Polls: What the Diaspora Is Watching

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement in late May 2024 of a UK general election on 4 July — falling, with no small irony, on the date of American Independence Day — opened a campaign period of intense scrutiny for Jamaicans and the wider Caribbean diaspora resident in Britain. Both Labour and the Conservatives published manifesto commitments relevant to immigration, Commonwealth relationships and Windrush, while the Reform UK party and the Liberal Democrats also addressed immigration policy in terms that directly affect Caribbean-heritage communities.

Labour’s manifesto commitment to a Windrush Commissioner was the most specific and actionable pledge directly affecting the Windrush generation. Caribbean-heritage voters, concentrated particularly in London, Birmingham and other major English cities, were noted by political analysts as a constituency whose concerns about race, immigration and colonial legacy cut across traditional party lines. The outcome of the election — which falls on the day following the end of this reporting period — would directly determine the pace and direction of Windrush reform.

Reparations: The Repair Campaign and International Momentum

In Jamaica, the Repair Campaign — a coalition of civil society organisations, academics and community leaders advocating for reparatory justice — maintained its public profile through the first half of 2024. The campaign continued to build the case for reparations to the Jamaican people from Britain, drawing on historical documentation of Jamaica’s central role in the British transatlantic slave trade, the wealth generated from enslaved labour and the lasting economic, social and cultural impacts of that history.

The international context for reparations advocacy was shifting. Germany’s ongoing negotiations with Namibia over reparations for the Herero and Nama genocides of the early twentieth century, the Netherlands’ formal apology for its role in the slave trade issued in 2022, and the growing academic literature quantifying the economic value of enslaved labour all provided reference points for Jamaican and Caribbean advocates. The CARICOM Reparations Commission continued to build the multilateral Caribbean case, with attention increasingly focused on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting — at that point scheduled for Apia in October 2024 — as the next major diplomatic opportunity.

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Sources for this report include the Jamaica Information Service, Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs (Jamaica), Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, House of Commons Library, King’s College London, GOV.UK (Windrush Schemes Factsheet March 2024), Electronic Immigration Network, CARICOM, the Commonwealth Secretariat and Caribbean National Weekly. This report was researched and published on 3 July 2024.