Yet another major immigration speech

By On 10 October 2011 · 8 Comments · In News

Prime Minister David Cameron has made yet another keynote speech on immigration. He seems hell bent on setting back race relations in this country by forty years.

Encouraging members of the public to rat on suspected illegal immigrant neighbours or work colleagues is hardly likely to promote community cohesion. It is a great way to settle scores or just get rid of ethnic minorities because you don’t like them very much, though. What is there to lose for the aggrieved racist complainant? If the suspected ‘illegal’ is in fact here illegally they get detained and removed. If they are here lawfully, they are subjected to a humiliating and traumatic dawn or workplace raid.

The criminalisation of forced marriages has been considered very carefully before but it was felt by some very serious people who actually work with the victims that it would do more harm than good (basically by dissuading the victims from taking action). Instead, a thoughtful civil scheme was introduced, which seems to be working. I’ve been instructed in several such cases myself.

Immigration bonds were proposed by the last Government but abandoned because they were considered impractical. I certainly would not trust the Home Office to administer millions and millions of pounds of such bonds. They can barely process credit cards or cheques at times.

Adding a few history questions to the citizenship test seems relatively harmless, but it is rather questionable how this will actually help those concerned integrate into British society. It smacks of gesture politics rather than serious governance.

I’ve got some more suggestions from the same stable:

  1. We start getting children to inform on their parents. There could be lessons at school about the evil threat posed by illegal immigrants. Only the Party can protect ordinary citizens against this threat.
  2. Force registered immigrants to wear some sort of visible badge so that they can easily be identified. Perhaps a yellow one.
  3. Carry out immigration raids at cricket and perhaps other sporting fixtures. Anyone wearing, for example, an Indian or Pakistani shirt who is not an actual visitor from that country should be deported to what is obviously their ‘home’ country.

As with the sudden withdrawal of women’s rights in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, it wouldn’t take much more to go down this road. The new proposal on ratting comes close to (1). Compulsory identity cards seems not that far from (2). There were credible reports of stop and search by immigration officials in a shopping centre, not that far from (3), and workplace raids on ethnic minority shops and businesses are becoming an accepted part of doing business, like mafia protection payments in Sicily.

It is all very well having a ‘debate’ on immigration, but this constant tirade from senior members of the Government against immigrants, immigration and ethnic minorities is becoming tiresome. The speech could have been even worse, mind you. Cameron apparently dropped the plan to force businesses to ‘own up’ to how many immigrants they employ. Not on the grounds that it was demeaning and damaging to race relations, though, but on the grounds that it was an additional regulatory burden.

 
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8 Responses to Yet another major immigration speech

  1. MS says:
    10 October 2011 at 5:40 pm

    I can almost see an asylum seeker being reported as illegal immigrant by their kind neighbor. I doubt UKBA would even bother to check their status in advance, knowing how bad their statistics are.
    What I find even more annoying is that the government is being so hypocritical. They try to present the policies as “fair” while they all have one underlying objective: reducing migration to reach their ridiculous targets. They want to criminalize forced marriages not because they care about the victims but because they think that would help reduce migration. Similarly, language tests, Life in the UK and all sorts of other barriers are not designed to encourage integration, community cohesion or whatever but simply to reduce the number of immigrants. I fail to see any “balance”, “fairness” and whatever other empty expressions UKBA regularly preface their guidance with.

  2. Mark says:
    10 October 2011 at 6:47 pm

    What about the notion that a couple earning less than £20,000 after tax are “obviously” likely to be a burden on the state? That’s the most objectionable, bizarre and downright untrue part of the speech. Setting an income threshold anywhere near thay would be ridiculous, punish those on lower incomes by denying them the right to marry who they want, and lead to masses of (likely successful) Article 8 challenges for in-country applicants, clogging the courts and wasting public money.

  3. Michelle Hunter says:
    10 October 2011 at 7:48 pm

    I see that if the new rules come into play we will have to be rich to be able to bring a foriegn spouse here how is that fair?? If your not on the salary of a doctor or a politician then you need to live abroad with your spouse! Its getting beyond ridiculous. How can our government be allowed to make these changes? So you cant marry till your 21 if you want to marry out of the EU you have to earn way above the minimum wage and your spouse has to have been allowed at least 2 visit visas before you can bring them here whats next??

  4. Gwen Morris says:
    10 October 2011 at 8:10 pm

    I blame Liam Fox. Seems like a good day to distract attention away from what’s really ailing the Gov’t. Let’s roll out the usual dog…er goat.. to kick.

  5. Mutly says:
    10 October 2011 at 8:14 pm

    “Encouraging members of the public to rat on suspected illegal immigrant neighbours or work colleagues is hardly likely to promote community cohesion.”

    Big society. The people take over functions of government including voicing suspicions of those who “look/sound foreign”. Not merely conservative, also reactionary.

    “Immigration bonds were proposed by the last Government but abandoned because they were considered impractical.”

    Others outside government may reject them because the resemble indentured labour and should be a matter of history.

    • Mutly says:
      10 October 2011 at 8:15 pm

      P.S. Interesting proposals in light of the BBC series “Mixed Britannia” on how things used to be for binational couples and “mixed children”.

  6. Ralph Davies says:
    10 October 2011 at 8:53 pm

    ‘Tis indeed worrying, as it would seem to further countenance the already-Kafkaesque actions of the UKBA which are perpetrated on the simple basis that they can do so without regard to law:-

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14245802

    http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Grieving-widow-detained-way-husband-s-funeral/story-11424804-detail/story.html

  7. Goodbye paragraph 395C? « Free Movement says:
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