Government plans for celebrations to mark 70 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush ship are in danger of being overshadowed by ongoing anger about the Home Office’s classification of thousands of Caribbean-born long-term UK residents as illegal immigrants.



The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, has called on the government to reveal the full extent of the crisis and to provide swift responses to a series of key questions that remain unanswered.



“Warm words about commemorating the Windrush generation are not enough,” she wrote in a letter to the home secretary, Sajid Javid. “Whilst the government celebrates the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants, we still do not know how many of our fellow citizens have been hounded out of their country, detained in immigration detention centres and left jobless and destitute.”



Friday is the 70th anniversary of the day when about 500 people from the Caribbean disembarked from the Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks in Essex to join the effort to rebuild postwar Britain.

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said plans to commemorate the day were complicated by the fact that the recent deportations scandal had left many British-Caribbean people feeling like second-class citizens.

“I think it’s a moment to celebrate the people who gave so much and took so little, but it is a little bittersweet,” he said. “The Windrush scandal has left a very nasty taste in the mouth and there will be many Britons who feel sad that that has happened.”



Abbott has asked Javid for the precise number of Windrush people wrongly deported, and also the number of those forced into “voluntary” deportation before any threat of forcible deportation, as well as the number of people refused their right to re-entry and barred from returning after trips abroad



She is also asking for the number of people from the Windrush generation who have been detained in immigration removal centres, and for a total number of people who have lost their jobs, been made homeless and been barred from accessing benefits or health services.

She has also asked him to provide clarity on the number of cases that the Commonwealth taskforce has resolved within the government’s self-imposed two-week deadline.



“In order to make good on your promise to do right by the Windrush generation and begin to right this historic wrong, you must stop covering up the extent of the Windrush crisis and publish these figures,” Abbott said.

She asked for an update on a “full review of lessons learned” promised by Theresa May on 2 May. “Lessons can only be learned if there is complete transparency regarding the causes and human impact of the Windrush crisis,” she said.



Downing Street has organised a reception with the prime minister on Friday afternoon to mark the anniversary. Equalities campaigner Gus John said he was surprised and bemused to have been invited to the event.



In an open letter to May, he said the “hostile environment” policies she introduced as home secretary had condemned “long-retired workers of the Windrush generation to uncertainty, misery, physical hardship and denial of the same life-saving health services for which they had paid throughout their working lives”.

He said he stood “with those who suffered detention, deportation and mental ill health” as a result of government policies. “It would be a shameful betrayal to them all to accept your invitation and join you in Downing Street to mark the arrival of the Windrush 70 years ago and the contribution to British society of those whom it brought and their descendants,” he wrote.



On Monday the government announced a grant of £500,000 to fund annual celebrations honouring migrants from the Caribbean on Windrush Day, to help to “recognise and honour the enormous contribution” of those who arrived between 1948 and 1971.



Patrick Vernon, who has been campaigning for months for Windrush Day to become a national holiday, said he felt Friday would be only “half a celebration” because so many people were still affected by the fallout from the scandal.

Herman Ouseley, a crossbench peer and race relations campaigner, said people would be celebrating on Friday but there remained fundamental questions about how Windrush people had been treated. “There are people who have been left destitute still waiting for compensation. Clearly the government are not going fast enough,” he said.



A Home Office spokesman said: “The home secretary has apologised unreservedly for the distress caused to people of the Windrush generation. We have issued 2,104 documents confirming people’s settled status since 17 April and have granted British citizenship to 285 people since the Windrush scheme went live on 30 May, showing that we are making real progress in confirming the status of people who have every right to enjoy the same benefits as other residents of the UK.”