We have just received information that there has been another hunger strike amongst the detainees at the Brook House detention centre at Gatwick Airport. The hunger strike, due to last three days, started on Monday and we are told that at least 100 people on one of the immigration prison's wings were refusing food on Tuesday with many prisoners on other wings following suit.
In December we reprinted a Corporate Watch article highlighting the deterioration in conditions there and this hunger strike is as a direct result of situation. The detention centre has also been the site of a number of previous hunger strikes since it opened last March (in fact the opening sparked a hunger strike in nearby Tinsley House when it caused disruption to their food services) and unrest, as well as topping the self harm in detention figures.
Below is a copy of an announcement passed amongst the detainees at the weekend:
Reminder to al detainees in all wings
As you know the hunger strike is starting tomorrow Monday the 04/01/2010. Some detainees may take it as a joke but believe me is more serious than that. Think about your family; your son your daughter your mum and how she is coping. If you want to change your circumstances, don't expect the UKBA to come and open the door and let you go. Think about the history, and how famous people like Martin Luther King changed American history, by striking and talking about his problems. If you want to be free you have to sacrifice a little bit and a one or two days hungry is not to kill you of hunger but of course can make them think again about how long they can detain us. Please if you are not willing in taking part in this strike feel free to do so. Change is coming soon just do as the majority will do and make your voice heard. Take part in this strike and feel positive about the outcome.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Arora International Hotels - Public Statement
No Borders Brighton are currently seeking endorsements for a public statement condemning the attempt by Arora International Hotels to seek planning permission to convert the 254-bed Mercure Hotel in Crawley into a detention centre. We plan to send copies to all 37 Crawley Borough councillors and release the statement to the press prior to the planning meeting, currently scheduled for 25 January.
We therefore ask all interested organisations and individuals who wish to put their names to the statement below to e-mail us by 15 January with their endorsements.
E-mail: brightonnoborders@riseup.net
The Statement:
The Arora International Hotels chain wishes to convert the 254-bed Mercure Hotel in Povey Cross Road, Crawley into an Immigration Removal Centre. Due to the nature of the existing building and the site it occupies, it could only be converted into a detention centre to house families and children.
The detention of children in immigration prisons has long been condemned by authorities around the globe for the adverse physical and psychological effects it has on them. In this country these have included the Children's Commissioner for England Sir Alan Aynsley-Green, Refugee and Migrant Justice (formerly the Refugee Legal Centre) and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee to name but a few.
Just this month (December 2009), the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of General Practitioners and the Faculty of Public Health (and endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing) published a briefing paper entitled 'Significant Harm - the effects of administrative detention on the health of children, young people and their families', which declared that the administrative detention of children is unacceptable and should cease without delay.
Gatwick is already the site of two Immigration Removal Centres, Tinsley House and Brook House, both the source of recent criticism. In particular, Tinsley House is the subject of a highly critical report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Dame Anne Owers, regarding an unannounced short follow-up inspection on 13–15 July 2009, published on 18 December. The report described the arrangements for children at Tinsley House as "wholly unacceptable" and criticised the "prison-like culture" and the "limited access to fresh air" of the children imprisoned there.
We the undersigned call on Arora International Hotels to unconditionally withdraw their application for change of use of Mercure Hotel and, failing that, for Crawley Borough Council to reject the application at the earliest opportunity. Imprisoning children for the 'crime' of being a migrant is totally unacceptable and nobody should encourage others to profit from the activity, whatever the situation.
We therefore ask all interested organisations and individuals who wish to put their names to the statement below to e-mail us by 15 January with their endorsements.
E-mail: brightonnoborders@riseup.net
The Statement:
The Arora International Hotels chain wishes to convert the 254-bed Mercure Hotel in Povey Cross Road, Crawley into an Immigration Removal Centre. Due to the nature of the existing building and the site it occupies, it could only be converted into a detention centre to house families and children.
The detention of children in immigration prisons has long been condemned by authorities around the globe for the adverse physical and psychological effects it has on them. In this country these have included the Children's Commissioner for England Sir Alan Aynsley-Green, Refugee and Migrant Justice (formerly the Refugee Legal Centre) and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee to name but a few.
Just this month (December 2009), the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of General Practitioners and the Faculty of Public Health (and endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing) published a briefing paper entitled 'Significant Harm - the effects of administrative detention on the health of children, young people and their families', which declared that the administrative detention of children is unacceptable and should cease without delay.
Gatwick is already the site of two Immigration Removal Centres, Tinsley House and Brook House, both the source of recent criticism. In particular, Tinsley House is the subject of a highly critical report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Dame Anne Owers, regarding an unannounced short follow-up inspection on 13–15 July 2009, published on 18 December. The report described the arrangements for children at Tinsley House as "wholly unacceptable" and criticised the "prison-like culture" and the "limited access to fresh air" of the children imprisoned there.
We the undersigned call on Arora International Hotels to unconditionally withdraw their application for change of use of Mercure Hotel and, failing that, for Crawley Borough Council to reject the application at the earliest opportunity. Imprisoning children for the 'crime' of being a migrant is totally unacceptable and nobody should encourage others to profit from the activity, whatever the situation.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
More Immigration 'Outrage' In Phoney Election Agenda
And we are off again in the election stakes with Damien Green, shadow immigration minister, as the jockey flogging the dead horse of Nu Labour's immigration policy. This time he has chosen to focus on legal aid costs to migrants ensnared in the immigration system.
The Telegraph, Mail (in the guise of the redoubtable James Slack) and Sun all carried pieces highlighting the latest selection from Green's immigration war chest stocked up especially for the coming election so he could further enrage Concerned of Tunbridge Wells possibly push as many disenchanted ex-Labour pit bull-owning and Burberry-wearing potential BNP voters his way as possible.
The 'revelation' this time was the '£28million cost of providing legal advice to every asylum seeker in the UK' in the words of the Telegraph headline or 'More than £28m spent on legal aid for asylum seekers last year' if you prefer the Mail's version (they always have to exaggerate, Green only said that the bill MIGHT be higher). This means that the nearly 47,000 asylum cases heard in 2008/9 amounted to an average of roughly £610 per person.
Except that not everybody in the asylum process will have availed themselves of their right to free legal representation and many who did would also have also gone on to an immigration tribunal, at an average cost of £1,670 per application, or even to judicial review, £2,500 a shot.
On top of that Green says there are 4,857 asylum appeals currently outstanding, "hundreds of thousands of asylum cases that have been hanging around for years. This involves a huge cost to the taxpayer, as well as being unfair to those involved (very generous). A quick, efficient system would be a real benefit, but ministers have failed to deliver this despite twelve years of trying."
The big question is, what is Green and his yellow press friends suggesting? That legal aid for asylum cases is abolished? That the appeal process is scraped and all immigration decisions are carried out by diktat or maybe immigration should be banned all together? [see: The Myth Of The 70 Million]
To try and rub further salt into the wound, the Telegraph also points out that "ministers have promised to clear the 450,000 so-called “legacy” cases, some of which date back to the 1990s, by 2011. Just under 200,000 cases have been dealt with so far, of which 63,000 immigrants have been told they could stay." (Notice they don't say that "more than 135,000 immigrants have been told they have to leave.") Given that these 'legacy cases' we first revealed by the government 3 years ago, they certainly seem to have fallen a bit behind on their schedule.
However, given the stink that was kicked up by the Telegraph [1, 2] and Mail when it was announced that extra staff were being taken on to help deal with the problem and what happened when ministers changed the guidelines to simplify procedures where people were from countries excluded from the government's White List of 'safe' countries, it looks like a no-win situation for Nu Labour. On the other hand, given that the Mail was claiming in 2006 that it would take "25 years to remove them all", they might not be as useless as the Tories claim they are.
The Telegraph, Mail (in the guise of the redoubtable James Slack) and Sun all carried pieces highlighting the latest selection from Green's immigration war chest stocked up especially for the coming election so he could further enrage Concerned of Tunbridge Wells possibly push as many disenchanted ex-Labour pit bull-owning and Burberry-wearing potential BNP voters his way as possible.
The 'revelation' this time was the '£28million cost of providing legal advice to every asylum seeker in the UK' in the words of the Telegraph headline or 'More than £28m spent on legal aid for asylum seekers last year' if you prefer the Mail's version (they always have to exaggerate, Green only said that the bill MIGHT be higher). This means that the nearly 47,000 asylum cases heard in 2008/9 amounted to an average of roughly £610 per person.
Except that not everybody in the asylum process will have availed themselves of their right to free legal representation and many who did would also have also gone on to an immigration tribunal, at an average cost of £1,670 per application, or even to judicial review, £2,500 a shot.
On top of that Green says there are 4,857 asylum appeals currently outstanding, "hundreds of thousands of asylum cases that have been hanging around for years. This involves a huge cost to the taxpayer, as well as being unfair to those involved (very generous). A quick, efficient system would be a real benefit, but ministers have failed to deliver this despite twelve years of trying."
The big question is, what is Green and his yellow press friends suggesting? That legal aid for asylum cases is abolished? That the appeal process is scraped and all immigration decisions are carried out by diktat or maybe immigration should be banned all together? [see: The Myth Of The 70 Million]
To try and rub further salt into the wound, the Telegraph also points out that "ministers have promised to clear the 450,000 so-called “legacy” cases, some of which date back to the 1990s, by 2011. Just under 200,000 cases have been dealt with so far, of which 63,000 immigrants have been told they could stay." (Notice they don't say that "more than 135,000 immigrants have been told they have to leave.") Given that these 'legacy cases' we first revealed by the government 3 years ago, they certainly seem to have fallen a bit behind on their schedule.
However, given the stink that was kicked up by the Telegraph [1, 2] and Mail when it was announced that extra staff were being taken on to help deal with the problem and what happened when ministers changed the guidelines to simplify procedures where people were from countries excluded from the government's White List of 'safe' countries, it looks like a no-win situation for Nu Labour. On the other hand, given that the Mail was claiming in 2006 that it would take "25 years to remove them all", they might not be as useless as the Tories claim they are.
The Myth Of The 70 Million
Oh dear, the immigration flat earthers are at it again , in this case the 'Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration', babbling on about the mythic 70 million mark for the UK population. The essence of their argument is that:
Needless to say the yellow press lapped it up. We had five pieces [5] in the Telegraph and in its on-line version, including 'Reduce net immigration to zero, say MPs'; 'Coalition demands population be kept under 70 million' - "An unprecedented coalition of MPs and public figures, including a former Commons speaker and former Archbishop of Canterbury, have demanded the UK population be kept under 70 million - or risk public "harmony".", except that the the group have been knocking around for the past 15 months to little or no notice, except in the sort of papers that are happy to perpetuate this sort of scaremongering; and the piece-de-resistance: 'Migrants should understand Christian heritage, says former Anglican leader' - "Migrants should respect the Christian heritage of Britain while the immigration system needs to focus more on values, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said."
The Mail, not to be left out had 2 articles, '70 million is too many: Immigrant-fuelled population boom will damage society, say leading public figures' and a Carey headed one 'All immigrants should learn Christian values, says Lord Carey', which subsequently mutated into 'All immigrants should learn our Christian values: Former Archbishop of Canterbury's warning over population' and then to ''I fear for my grandchildren' says former Archbishop of Canterbury, as he calls for Christian values to be defended' in the on-line version.
There was also an opinion piece by one Harry Phibbs (an all too enticing name to comment upon) entitled 'Immigration is not just a numbers game' and laying out the Word according to The Mail (hallowed be thy name) - all waffle about "misguided emphasis on multiculturalism" and that "insufficient effort is put into ensuring that everyone can speak English, that the law is enforced without fear or favour"(!?) and the "welfare system encourages immigrants to be locked into dependency and bureaucracy rather than encouraging their innate enterprise and ambition to make a contribution to the economic prosperity of us all."
He finishes of this tosh by claiming that we should "remember it's not just a numbers game. It's about achieving harmonious relations for those who are already here. That means fairness and ensuring that those who have come to live here make a positive contribution to our national life." So does this mean that Dacre and the Mail are going to change their editorial policy and stop being a racist mouthpiece slagging of all things foreign? Of course not. [Are we the only people that have noticed the hypocrisy of the latest Mail promotion of £20 holidays in France? The Mail hates almost everything to do with France except when there are public displays of breasts or some islamophobia or foreigner-bashing involved on the party of our cousins across La Manche.]
By comparison, the Express' take on it 'MPs Urge Brown And Cameron To Deal With Immigration Levels' was rather paltry given their participation in the push to raise the profile of immigration on the 'phoney election campaign' agenda. However, the Mirror took up some of the slack with 3 versions of the story (at least in their on-line version) which added nothing to the debate (or lack of it), although they did directly mention the BNP as did the Scotsman and papers like the Liverpool Echo.
So what are we left with? Not a lot really, just a lot of people wanting the comfort of the crowd so they can air their prejudices and not be slapped down for effectively saying "let's end immigration except for the mega-rich and those with skills that we need to exploit but cannot provide ourselves for the right price".
[1] MigrationBotch did pull all the stops out with their evidence to the very same committee, searching out all the negative effects they could to bring the figure for the positive benefit down as much as possible [see: 1, 2]. Of course the idea that immigration benefits the UK economy to the 'Equivalent to a Mars bar a Month' is a long-held position. An interesting discussion on MigrationBotch's position can be seen at David Smith's EconomicsUK.com.
[2] For a discussion on the lack of research into the economic benefits of immigration in the UK, see: Immigration. Benefits for the UK.
[3] One new foreign household each 5 minutes for the next 21 years = roughly 2,208,960 households. As 40% of all new households, the total = 5,552,400. As the current population is roughly 6.1m, then this would mean they are assuming an average household size of 1.63 people!
[4] Interestingly, amongst the 20 people that signed the declaration, significant absences from the group's members listed on their website are Ann Cryer MP, Peter Lilley MP, Lord Lamont, Lord Ahmed, Archie Norman and 4 others. Surely they can't all be on holiday?
[5] Including an opinion piece 'Immigration: an overdue debate' and an on-line comments piece 'Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, shatters the Anglican consensus on immigration' by Damian Thompson, the Telegraph blogs editor.
- Too many foreigners are coming over here stealing our school places, doctors' appointment slots, hospital beds, road scape, shopping trolleys and other benefits of global capitalism and the legacy of Empire, which could in the end lead to the loss of such British traditions as the post-lager curry.
- That there is (or at least the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords found) "no evidence that net immigration generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population", contrary to the commonly held view that it generates a net positive benefit. [1] Not surprising really since there has been very little research done into the economic effects of immigration. [2]
- 40% of new households formed by 20031 (the magic date when the population is currently projected to top 70m) will be the result of immigration, approximately one every five minutes. Tick tock. A quick look at these figures [3] reveals they are assuming an average size across the board for all new households of 1.63 people. Surely they know that all these foreigners live 8 or even 10 to a room?
- "We call on the major parties to make clear commitments in their General Election manifestos to reduce net immigration to the levels of the early 1990s (nostalgia for the Thatcher years) – that is less than 40,000 a year compared to 163,000 in 2008 – in such a way as to ensure that the population of the UK will not reach 70 million." You could of course introduce compulsory sterilisation of the social inadequate or economically unproductive or even compulsory euthanasia (not a particularly good option given the projected rise in the 'grey' population, currently one pensioner for every 3.2 workers, will drop to 2.8 workers for each pensioner by 2033, together with the fact that it is the influx of a predominantly younger migrant population that is currently stopping that ratio from being much lower).
- "The first requirement is a clear political decision to put in hand the measures required to restore control over our borders, to break the present almost automatic link between coming to Britain and later gaining citizenship, and thus take a range of further measures to limit the growth in our population." i.e. withdraw from the EU and go back to the days when the cost of moving around the globe was so high that only the vey rich could afford it and therefore have the chance of gaining UK citizenship.
- "Nearly a million votes by our fellow citizens for an extremist party amount to a danger sign which must not be ignored." Let's not mention those nasty BNP people, but lets do take back racism for the mainstream.
Needless to say the yellow press lapped it up. We had five pieces [5] in the Telegraph and in its on-line version, including 'Reduce net immigration to zero, say MPs'; 'Coalition demands population be kept under 70 million' - "An unprecedented coalition of MPs and public figures, including a former Commons speaker and former Archbishop of Canterbury, have demanded the UK population be kept under 70 million - or risk public "harmony".", except that the the group have been knocking around for the past 15 months to little or no notice, except in the sort of papers that are happy to perpetuate this sort of scaremongering; and the piece-de-resistance: 'Migrants should understand Christian heritage, says former Anglican leader' - "Migrants should respect the Christian heritage of Britain while the immigration system needs to focus more on values, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said."
The Mail, not to be left out had 2 articles, '70 million is too many: Immigrant-fuelled population boom will damage society, say leading public figures' and a Carey headed one 'All immigrants should learn Christian values, says Lord Carey', which subsequently mutated into 'All immigrants should learn our Christian values: Former Archbishop of Canterbury's warning over population' and then to ''I fear for my grandchildren' says former Archbishop of Canterbury, as he calls for Christian values to be defended' in the on-line version.
There was also an opinion piece by one Harry Phibbs (an all too enticing name to comment upon) entitled 'Immigration is not just a numbers game' and laying out the Word according to The Mail (hallowed be thy name) - all waffle about "misguided emphasis on multiculturalism" and that "insufficient effort is put into ensuring that everyone can speak English, that the law is enforced without fear or favour"(!?) and the "welfare system encourages immigrants to be locked into dependency and bureaucracy rather than encouraging their innate enterprise and ambition to make a contribution to the economic prosperity of us all."
He finishes of this tosh by claiming that we should "remember it's not just a numbers game. It's about achieving harmonious relations for those who are already here. That means fairness and ensuring that those who have come to live here make a positive contribution to our national life." So does this mean that Dacre and the Mail are going to change their editorial policy and stop being a racist mouthpiece slagging of all things foreign? Of course not. [Are we the only people that have noticed the hypocrisy of the latest Mail promotion of £20 holidays in France? The Mail hates almost everything to do with France except when there are public displays of breasts or some islamophobia or foreigner-bashing involved on the party of our cousins across La Manche.]
By comparison, the Express' take on it 'MPs Urge Brown And Cameron To Deal With Immigration Levels' was rather paltry given their participation in the push to raise the profile of immigration on the 'phoney election campaign' agenda. However, the Mirror took up some of the slack with 3 versions of the story (at least in their on-line version) which added nothing to the debate (or lack of it), although they did directly mention the BNP as did the Scotsman and papers like the Liverpool Echo.
So what are we left with? Not a lot really, just a lot of people wanting the comfort of the crowd so they can air their prejudices and not be slapped down for effectively saying "let's end immigration except for the mega-rich and those with skills that we need to exploit but cannot provide ourselves for the right price".
[1] MigrationBotch did pull all the stops out with their evidence to the very same committee, searching out all the negative effects they could to bring the figure for the positive benefit down as much as possible [see: 1, 2]. Of course the idea that immigration benefits the UK economy to the 'Equivalent to a Mars bar a Month' is a long-held position. An interesting discussion on MigrationBotch's position can be seen at David Smith's EconomicsUK.com.
[2] For a discussion on the lack of research into the economic benefits of immigration in the UK, see: Immigration. Benefits for the UK.
[3] One new foreign household each 5 minutes for the next 21 years = roughly 2,208,960 households. As 40% of all new households, the total = 5,552,400. As the current population is roughly 6.1m, then this would mean they are assuming an average household size of 1.63 people!
[4] Interestingly, amongst the 20 people that signed the declaration, significant absences from the group's members listed on their website are Ann Cryer MP, Peter Lilley MP, Lord Lamont, Lord Ahmed, Archie Norman and 4 others. Surely they can't all be on holiday?
[5] Including an opinion piece 'Immigration: an overdue debate' and an on-line comments piece 'Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, shatters the Anglican consensus on immigration' by Damian Thompson, the Telegraph blogs editor.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Yellow Press Push Immigration In Phoney Election Agenda
Not only has the 2010 election campaign started in earnest, but the yellow press has also started a 'press ganging' campaign to try and push immigration to the top of the agenda, to force Dave™ to drop his 'oh-so-liberal' stance on social issue and emulate their hero Thatcher's barely concealed contempt for non-white foreigners.
On New Year's Day the thermal gloves came off with avengeance, kicked off needless to say by the Daily Hate, the self-styled 'Last Bulwark Against The Tide Of Filth That Is Threatening To Engulf Civilisation'™, in league with what now appears to be its front organisation, MigrationBotch [see below]. The piece, widely covered by the usual suspects in the paper's wake, was entitled 'Foreigners' visa appeals are costing us £1m every week, says report'. Based on a MigrationBotch 'report' Family Visitor Appeals (actually one of their numerous 'briefing papers'), it ended up conflating the so-called think tank's (really a one-man vanity effort) hyperbole into the usual Mail flight of immigration fancy.
For example, the report's summary contained a typical MigrationBotch-ism: "The definition of family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle aged person in Britain."(??!) In the mind of James Slack (by name, slack by nature), well known to readers of this blog, this became: "According to a report by Migrationwatch, there are as many as 120 relatives – including first cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, and nieces – who can claim the right to visit and then appeal if refused." Outstanding! And just in case you missed it, later in the article we had: "The report claims that the definition of a family member is so wide that someone from a country where families often have four or five children could have between 80 and 120 relatives who could apply to visit."
The crux of MigrationBotch's argument seems to be that "The number of family visitor appeals has increased eight fold, to over a thousand a week, since charges were abolished in 2002." [Remember these figures.] This is because "In October 2000, following disquiet, particularly in the Asian and Black communities, that family members were being refused visit visas without appropriate remedy, the Right of Appeal against refusal of visitors visas for "family visitors" was re-instated under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Fees were originally set at 500 (sic) for an oral hearing or 150 (sic) for an appeal without a hearing. In January 2001 these fees were reduced to 125 (sic) and 50 (sic) but in May 2002 the fees were abolished entirely."
So this means (and we apologise for repeating ourselves as the Mail and Alan Green also do on this particular issue) that (in the words of MigrationBotch i.e. Alan Green) "This definition of family visitor is so widely drawn that somebody from a third world country where the number of children per family is often four or five, could sponsor somewhere between 80 and 120 people under this scheme." [our emphasis] Therefore there are too many foreigners costing 'us' too much money because they are taking advantage of a free 'service' to appeal against what often (to them) seem like arbitrary refusals to be allowed to visit family members.
So is the Mail, MigrationBotch and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all saying that:
1] there should be no appeal unless you are willing to pay an exorbitant fee; or that
2] if you come from a large family you should only be allowed to see a strictly limited number of them or maybe none at all?
Of course they are, "the definition of family visitor should be substantially tightened, at least until embarkation controls are in place. In particular, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and first cousins should no longer be included." [1] "Fees should be re-instated at the original levels. There is no reason why the British tax payer should pay the costs of appeals by foreign visitors."
So, examining the figures given for the increase in appeals [2] we find that there was an increase of 32 times in the number of appeals in the year between 2000 and 2001 when the fee was initially cut. [3] This of course could be down to the fact that the large reduction in fees brought the option of appealing a decision into many more people's financial capabilities. Comparisons based around the subsequent abolition in mid 2002 are more difficult, as the figures are yearly and the reduction occurred mid-year. However, lets assume that the numbers of appeal in the first half of 2002 was the same as the average for 2001 (2183), then 5814 people possibly appealed during the second half of the year. Then for the next couple of years there is a rough doubling of numbers year-on-year until 2006/7 when the trend is bucked and numbers decrease only to show what amounts to a 10% increase in 2007/8 on the 2006/7 figures. So there was hardly a sudden mad rush to take advantage of the new situation.
Clearly the figure have increased over time and so many factors can have played their part in causing this increase, including the ease of appeal but also there has been a worldwide increase in mobility, especially via cheap air fairs. People have also lost to a certain extent their tugging-the-forelock attitude to authority and are not content with accepting what some faceless bureaucrat tells them. But what the real agenda here appears to be is one where 'these people' , rather than having their families coming over here where the lure of over-staying is too strong for people who are currently only too willing to take advantage of 'our generosity', they should be going to visit their family in their home countries. ("Given that there is no recording of visitors as they arrive and depart, there is no way of knowing whether those originally admitted as "family visitors" have left the UK." What about e-Borders?)
Interestingly this 'report' was not press released until the following day (2 Jan), when the usual suspects, the Telegraph and the Express, picked up on it and published their own takes on this vital piece of research. The Telegraph's take on the report included the following argument: "The number of appeals made by visitors refused entry to the UK on a “family visa” has increased eight-fold since 2002. Pressure group (sic) Migrationwatch disclosed that part of the reason for the rise is that the definition of a “family visitor” is so wide that it can include as many as 120 relatives of an average middle-aged immigrant in Britain – including first cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces." Except that the changes that allegedly resulted in the increase in the number of appeals were due to the fees not changes in the definition of who is and who is not a 'family member'.
The Telegraph also had their own Green quotes, including: “Obviously, family members should be able to visit relatives in Britain but such visits need to be properly regulated. There is a clear risk that, once here, some of these visitors will stay on illegally knowing that the chance of being removed is remote." Just a very select and limited number of those family members. "Furthermore, in current financial circumstances, it is no longer acceptable that taxpayers should pay the appeal costs for foreign nationals wishing to visit Britain." So the UK could afford it in the past, it is only just due to the downturn that the charges have to be reintroduced?
In the Express piece we have yet another re-jig of the same tired rhetoric: "In the current recession it is no longer acceptable that taxpayers should pay the appeal costs for foreign nationals wishing to visit Britain. The definition of a family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle-aged person. The definition should be narrowed and charges which the Government abolished in 2002 should be re-introduced."
The Express the same day also have a comment piece 'Labour is Still Shamefully Lax On Immigration Laws' pointing up that the government's claim that its 'points-based' system "will sort out Britain’s immigration chaos is already being shown up as a sham" and tying in student visas to the family visa situation.
"Ever since then the Government has facilitated so-called “chain migration” with the result that many young British Asians who would prefer to integrate are put under massive pressure to marry non-English speakers from the sub-continent. This has led to ghettoisation, fostered extremism and deprived many young women of self-determination and freedom of expression. With the population of Britain heading towards 70 million and precious little that can be done to stop immigration from within the EU, it is absolutely essential that all routes of entry from outside it are strictly controlled. Otherwise Britain will continue on the path to becoming the most overcrowded and Balkanised society in the free world." Utter bollox. Devious bollox mind you, tying forced marriage into the immigration issue, 'ghettoisation', 'extremism', the myth of the 70 million and the old canard of becoming "the most overcrowded and Balkanised (!?) society in the free world." So that obviously doesn't include China, but what about India?
The same day the Mail once again led the line with fresh attack. 'Jobs for illegals at Home Office as dozens of NHS and public bodies ignore immigration laws' bellowed the particularly nonsensical title of a Mail piece covering the results of their latest immigration-dirt digging Freedom of Information Act application. [4] Apparently the Mail on Sunday had contacted every Government department, council and hospital in Britain for details of their employees since 2006 who had subsequently been found to be 'illegal' immigrants. The on-line version was also helpfully accompanied by a full listing of all 349 admitted cases. Top of the list came the Home Office which the Mail claimed "admitted employing a dozen illegal foreign staff over the past four years - 11 Nigerians and a Ghanaian."
"Ten of them secured cleaning jobs at Becket House, the headquarters of the UK Border Agency, which vets immigrants. The building in Croydon, South London, also serves as an immigration detention centre, holding up to 270 people awaiting deportation. Two other illegal immigrants worked at the Whitehall headquarters of the Home Office, which houses the office of Home Secretary Alan Johnson. One was a chef in the canteen, while the other worked as a security guard on the front door for 19 months."
Then, just in case you had not fully grasped the shocking implications of this, they helpfully stated "The Home Office headquarters is regarded as one of Britain's most high-profile terrorist targets and receives round-the-clock police protection."
Other juicy quotes from this drivel were: "Three Government departments, 34 local authorities and 54 NHS trusts admitted hiring a total of 349 unlawful (sic) foreign workers. The list featured 37 nationalities, including migrants from Kazakhstan, Zambia and Venezuela." And "The Mail on Sunday asked each of the 91 public bodies who admitted employing illegal foreign workers (sic) to provide details of any penalties they received. Not one of them had received a fine, which can be as high as £10,000."
The latter served as a drum-roll to introduce Chris Grayling, Tory [5] Home Secretary-in-waiting: "This is an absolute scandal. The Government has taken tough action against private companies over the employment of illegal immigrants, yet on this evidence it is quite clear the public sector has taken on bogus workers and escaped any form of censure." "We have Ministers constantly telling us they have got to grips with the chaos in our immigration system, yet the Home Office itself has been employing illegal workers. It is completely unacceptable and we need an urgent explanation from Ministers," he blustered further.
However our favourite piece of outrage is the "It is breathtaking that procedures and checks at the Home Office are so lax that an illegal immigrant could cook food for the Home Secretary himself. This is a huge security breach. We cannot go on like this" quote. Obviously he'll be bringing his own chef with him come June.
So what did the Home Office have to say about this, as even the Mail could not get away without giving them the 'right' to reply? Tucked away at the bottom of the piece (before it went on to lay into the Attorney General Patricia Scotland yet again and after Alan Green's two sentences [6]) a spokesman is quoted as saying: "The 12 illegal workers identified were all sub-contractors. None of them were directly employed by the Home Office. It was our checks and the strict regime we operate on illegal working in the UK that brought these cases to light. We are doing more than ever before to crack down on illegal working, with raids taking place up and down the country every week and thousands of rule-breakers deported."
The Telegraph and Express also chipped in with their own rehashes of the Mail's story in the following days.
Next up we have a Telegraph article that shows just how far the yellow press fears the Tories have moved away from the reactionary and racist 'middle ground', 'Conservatives accuse Labour of raising immigration issue in marginal constituencies'. "Senior Conservatives have accused Nu Labour of a "below the radar" campaign to raise the issue of immigration in marginal constituencies, especially where the BNP is eating into its core vote." Obviously piqued that New Labour got there ahead of them and in particular that Labour's "double standards by raising the issue in constituencies whilst avoiding debate on it at Westminster."
The paper then goes on to detail a whole list of Nu Labour hypocrisy, including Margaret Hodge, facing an election challenge from BNP fuhrer Nick Griffin, who told a constituent that the change from her Barking seat being a "predominantly white area populated with traditional East End families" had been "very unsettling for many people" and that she respected their "concerns about the pace of change". Er, yes? Clearly she IS a politician and a such she was just stating the bleedin' obvious without saying she agreed with his concerns. Ed Balls apparently also put out a letter to constituents headed "Let's talk about immigration. An opportunity to let me know what you think." Wow. And the list goes on. A particularly good example of a non-story this one.
The same day we had the News of the World (can a paper ever have had a less apt title than that?) with 'Good Dole Blighty' - "Migrants who flock in ‘to work’ collect benefits costing millions." "TENS of thousands of immigrants are claiming the DOLE - just months after arriving in Britain supposedly to WORK," screamed the following line.
Basically the piece seeks to paint a picture of 'hoards' of scrounging foreigners coming 'over here' to 'ponce off the country', completely ignoring the fact that access to benefits in the UK is severely restricted and not all migrants to the UK are here to WORK. The two groups that are able to claim Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), which is what we understand they mean when they claim that "In the last six years a staggering 169,000 immigrant workers claimed unemployment benefit within six months of getting a National Insurance number", are EEA national exercising Treaty rights and person with indefinite leave to enter / remain in the country. [See: Benefits for non-UK nationals]
The first group are covered by reciprocal EU welfare benefits legislation which we're sure even the NoW would not decry. The second are those people given asylum under international treaties and must therfore also be given the right to the full protection of UK law (something which the NoW doesn't appear to agree with however given the editorial line followed in this and other articles about anything to do with things foreign). All other groups including third country national (nationals of a non-EU country) with limited leave to remain and those so-called A8 and A2 nationals (unless registered under the Worker Registration and Worker Authorisation Schemes respectively and have been in 1 year continuous employment) are not eligible for JSA.
MigrationBotch of course got a quote in this too: "This is appalling. The government should explain who these people are and why they're able to claim benefits without having paid a penny into the system." Er, but there are numerous people who claim benefits without ever having worked. Child benefit is paid to parents on behalf of their children, the physically and mentally 'disabled' who may have never worked in their life of course are also entitled to state benefits. Yet then again, the reactionary 'libertarian' minimal state right wish people to stand (or fall) on their own with little or no state aid. Survival of the fittest and all that (completely misunderstanding Darwin).
Addition: We forgot to include another James Slack (by name, slack by nature) piece from 1 Jan entitled 'Foreign workers take 22,000 jobs amid recession', which covered the Mail's favourite current Tory shadow minister, Damien Green, attempting to prove that "Gordon Brown's promise to deliver 'British jobs for British workers' was a sham" by playing up the numbers of non-EEA workers in the UK.
"The number of foreign-born workers has rocketed by 22,000 during the worst recession on record. At the same time, the number of British-born employees slumped by 625,000."
"It found that while the number of British-born workers slumped to 25,104,000 in the year to June, those born outside the UK increased to 3,730,000. This was fuelled in part by a 12,000 leap in number of Eastern Europeans, to 518,000."
So this means that 2.4% of 'British-born' workers lost their jobs, whilst at the same time the number of non-EEA workers increased by 0.27%, equivalent to 3.5% of those 'British-born' workers who lost their jobs. Hardly a breath-taking set of statistics Mr Slack.
[1] Help is at hand for those of you slightly confused by how tightening the definition of who is and who isn't family would help: "In particular, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and first cousins should no longer be included. This would reduce the number of eligible relatives by up to 68." But that's not even a 50% reduction.
[2] In 2000 there were 137 appeals, 2001 4,366, 2002 7,997. Then there was a change in counting procedure; 2003/4 16,884, 2004/5 30,643, 2005/6 58,495, 2006/7 50,065 & 2007/8 64,669.
[3] Remember the claim earlier that since the abolition in 2002 the figure had increased 8 times i.e. in 8 years, equivalent to a doubling year-on-year.
[4] The piece of course came replete with the compulsory photograph of Calais migrants, with the accompanying legend "Alert: These illegal immigrants were caught by police at Calais but some of those who have reached Britain have worked for official bodies" just in case you hadn't noticed the reference, and a particularly scarey picture of MigrationBotch's Alan Green looking like an extremely constipated frog.
[5] Interestingly, the Mail do not appear particularly happy with New Tory Dave and his gang, especially when it comes to the immigration issue, and are not banging the Tory Party drum too forcefully. Add to that the fact that almost every person on their on-line readers' comment pages sounds like either a UKIP or BNP voter, it is not hard to understand why.
[6] One of which was repeated almost verbatim beneath his constipated frog photo. The other was a repeat of his tired old claim that there are nearly one million 'illegal' immigrants in the UK.
On New Year's Day the thermal gloves came off with avengeance, kicked off needless to say by the Daily Hate, the self-styled 'Last Bulwark Against The Tide Of Filth That Is Threatening To Engulf Civilisation'™, in league with what now appears to be its front organisation, MigrationBotch [see below]. The piece, widely covered by the usual suspects in the paper's wake, was entitled 'Foreigners' visa appeals are costing us £1m every week, says report'. Based on a MigrationBotch 'report' Family Visitor Appeals (actually one of their numerous 'briefing papers'), it ended up conflating the so-called think tank's (really a one-man vanity effort) hyperbole into the usual Mail flight of immigration fancy.
For example, the report's summary contained a typical MigrationBotch-ism: "The definition of family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle aged person in Britain."(??!) In the mind of James Slack (by name, slack by nature), well known to readers of this blog, this became: "According to a report by Migrationwatch, there are as many as 120 relatives – including first cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, and nieces – who can claim the right to visit and then appeal if refused." Outstanding! And just in case you missed it, later in the article we had: "The report claims that the definition of a family member is so wide that someone from a country where families often have four or five children could have between 80 and 120 relatives who could apply to visit."
The crux of MigrationBotch's argument seems to be that "The number of family visitor appeals has increased eight fold, to over a thousand a week, since charges were abolished in 2002." [Remember these figures.] This is because "In October 2000, following disquiet, particularly in the Asian and Black communities, that family members were being refused visit visas without appropriate remedy, the Right of Appeal against refusal of visitors visas for "family visitors" was re-instated under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Fees were originally set at 500 (sic) for an oral hearing or 150 (sic) for an appeal without a hearing. In January 2001 these fees were reduced to 125 (sic) and 50 (sic) but in May 2002 the fees were abolished entirely."
So this means (and we apologise for repeating ourselves as the Mail and Alan Green also do on this particular issue) that (in the words of MigrationBotch i.e. Alan Green) "This definition of family visitor is so widely drawn that somebody from a third world country where the number of children per family is often four or five, could sponsor somewhere between 80 and 120 people under this scheme." [our emphasis] Therefore there are too many foreigners costing 'us' too much money because they are taking advantage of a free 'service' to appeal against what often (to them) seem like arbitrary refusals to be allowed to visit family members.
So is the Mail, MigrationBotch and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all saying that:
1] there should be no appeal unless you are willing to pay an exorbitant fee; or that
2] if you come from a large family you should only be allowed to see a strictly limited number of them or maybe none at all?
Of course they are, "the definition of family visitor should be substantially tightened, at least until embarkation controls are in place. In particular, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and first cousins should no longer be included." [1] "Fees should be re-instated at the original levels. There is no reason why the British tax payer should pay the costs of appeals by foreign visitors."
So, examining the figures given for the increase in appeals [2] we find that there was an increase of 32 times in the number of appeals in the year between 2000 and 2001 when the fee was initially cut. [3] This of course could be down to the fact that the large reduction in fees brought the option of appealing a decision into many more people's financial capabilities. Comparisons based around the subsequent abolition in mid 2002 are more difficult, as the figures are yearly and the reduction occurred mid-year. However, lets assume that the numbers of appeal in the first half of 2002 was the same as the average for 2001 (2183), then 5814 people possibly appealed during the second half of the year. Then for the next couple of years there is a rough doubling of numbers year-on-year until 2006/7 when the trend is bucked and numbers decrease only to show what amounts to a 10% increase in 2007/8 on the 2006/7 figures. So there was hardly a sudden mad rush to take advantage of the new situation.
Clearly the figure have increased over time and so many factors can have played their part in causing this increase, including the ease of appeal but also there has been a worldwide increase in mobility, especially via cheap air fairs. People have also lost to a certain extent their tugging-the-forelock attitude to authority and are not content with accepting what some faceless bureaucrat tells them. But what the real agenda here appears to be is one where 'these people' , rather than having their families coming over here where the lure of over-staying is too strong for people who are currently only too willing to take advantage of 'our generosity', they should be going to visit their family in their home countries. ("Given that there is no recording of visitors as they arrive and depart, there is no way of knowing whether those originally admitted as "family visitors" have left the UK." What about e-Borders?)
Interestingly this 'report' was not press released until the following day (2 Jan), when the usual suspects, the Telegraph and the Express, picked up on it and published their own takes on this vital piece of research. The Telegraph's take on the report included the following argument: "The number of appeals made by visitors refused entry to the UK on a “family visa” has increased eight-fold since 2002. Pressure group (sic) Migrationwatch disclosed that part of the reason for the rise is that the definition of a “family visitor” is so wide that it can include as many as 120 relatives of an average middle-aged immigrant in Britain – including first cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces." Except that the changes that allegedly resulted in the increase in the number of appeals were due to the fees not changes in the definition of who is and who is not a 'family member'.
The Telegraph also had their own Green quotes, including: “Obviously, family members should be able to visit relatives in Britain but such visits need to be properly regulated. There is a clear risk that, once here, some of these visitors will stay on illegally knowing that the chance of being removed is remote." Just a very select and limited number of those family members. "Furthermore, in current financial circumstances, it is no longer acceptable that taxpayers should pay the appeal costs for foreign nationals wishing to visit Britain." So the UK could afford it in the past, it is only just due to the downturn that the charges have to be reintroduced?
In the Express piece we have yet another re-jig of the same tired rhetoric: "In the current recession it is no longer acceptable that taxpayers should pay the appeal costs for foreign nationals wishing to visit Britain. The definition of a family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle-aged person. The definition should be narrowed and charges which the Government abolished in 2002 should be re-introduced."
The Express the same day also have a comment piece 'Labour is Still Shamefully Lax On Immigration Laws' pointing up that the government's claim that its 'points-based' system "will sort out Britain’s immigration chaos is already being shown up as a sham" and tying in student visas to the family visa situation.
"Ever since then the Government has facilitated so-called “chain migration” with the result that many young British Asians who would prefer to integrate are put under massive pressure to marry non-English speakers from the sub-continent. This has led to ghettoisation, fostered extremism and deprived many young women of self-determination and freedom of expression. With the population of Britain heading towards 70 million and precious little that can be done to stop immigration from within the EU, it is absolutely essential that all routes of entry from outside it are strictly controlled. Otherwise Britain will continue on the path to becoming the most overcrowded and Balkanised society in the free world." Utter bollox. Devious bollox mind you, tying forced marriage into the immigration issue, 'ghettoisation', 'extremism', the myth of the 70 million and the old canard of becoming "the most overcrowded and Balkanised (!?) society in the free world." So that obviously doesn't include China, but what about India?
The same day the Mail once again led the line with fresh attack. 'Jobs for illegals at Home Office as dozens of NHS and public bodies ignore immigration laws' bellowed the particularly nonsensical title of a Mail piece covering the results of their latest immigration-dirt digging Freedom of Information Act application. [4] Apparently the Mail on Sunday had contacted every Government department, council and hospital in Britain for details of their employees since 2006 who had subsequently been found to be 'illegal' immigrants. The on-line version was also helpfully accompanied by a full listing of all 349 admitted cases. Top of the list came the Home Office which the Mail claimed "admitted employing a dozen illegal foreign staff over the past four years - 11 Nigerians and a Ghanaian."
"Ten of them secured cleaning jobs at Becket House, the headquarters of the UK Border Agency, which vets immigrants. The building in Croydon, South London, also serves as an immigration detention centre, holding up to 270 people awaiting deportation. Two other illegal immigrants worked at the Whitehall headquarters of the Home Office, which houses the office of Home Secretary Alan Johnson. One was a chef in the canteen, while the other worked as a security guard on the front door for 19 months."
Then, just in case you had not fully grasped the shocking implications of this, they helpfully stated "The Home Office headquarters is regarded as one of Britain's most high-profile terrorist targets and receives round-the-clock police protection."
Other juicy quotes from this drivel were: "Three Government departments, 34 local authorities and 54 NHS trusts admitted hiring a total of 349 unlawful (sic) foreign workers. The list featured 37 nationalities, including migrants from Kazakhstan, Zambia and Venezuela." And "The Mail on Sunday asked each of the 91 public bodies who admitted employing illegal foreign workers (sic) to provide details of any penalties they received. Not one of them had received a fine, which can be as high as £10,000."
The latter served as a drum-roll to introduce Chris Grayling, Tory [5] Home Secretary-in-waiting: "This is an absolute scandal. The Government has taken tough action against private companies over the employment of illegal immigrants, yet on this evidence it is quite clear the public sector has taken on bogus workers and escaped any form of censure." "We have Ministers constantly telling us they have got to grips with the chaos in our immigration system, yet the Home Office itself has been employing illegal workers. It is completely unacceptable and we need an urgent explanation from Ministers," he blustered further.
However our favourite piece of outrage is the "It is breathtaking that procedures and checks at the Home Office are so lax that an illegal immigrant could cook food for the Home Secretary himself. This is a huge security breach. We cannot go on like this" quote. Obviously he'll be bringing his own chef with him come June.
So what did the Home Office have to say about this, as even the Mail could not get away without giving them the 'right' to reply? Tucked away at the bottom of the piece (before it went on to lay into the Attorney General Patricia Scotland yet again and after Alan Green's two sentences [6]) a spokesman is quoted as saying: "The 12 illegal workers identified were all sub-contractors. None of them were directly employed by the Home Office. It was our checks and the strict regime we operate on illegal working in the UK that brought these cases to light. We are doing more than ever before to crack down on illegal working, with raids taking place up and down the country every week and thousands of rule-breakers deported."
The Telegraph and Express also chipped in with their own rehashes of the Mail's story in the following days.
Next up we have a Telegraph article that shows just how far the yellow press fears the Tories have moved away from the reactionary and racist 'middle ground', 'Conservatives accuse Labour of raising immigration issue in marginal constituencies'. "Senior Conservatives have accused Nu Labour of a "below the radar" campaign to raise the issue of immigration in marginal constituencies, especially where the BNP is eating into its core vote." Obviously piqued that New Labour got there ahead of them and in particular that Labour's "double standards by raising the issue in constituencies whilst avoiding debate on it at Westminster."
The paper then goes on to detail a whole list of Nu Labour hypocrisy, including Margaret Hodge, facing an election challenge from BNP fuhrer Nick Griffin, who told a constituent that the change from her Barking seat being a "predominantly white area populated with traditional East End families" had been "very unsettling for many people" and that she respected their "concerns about the pace of change". Er, yes? Clearly she IS a politician and a such she was just stating the bleedin' obvious without saying she agreed with his concerns. Ed Balls apparently also put out a letter to constituents headed "Let's talk about immigration. An opportunity to let me know what you think." Wow. And the list goes on. A particularly good example of a non-story this one.
The same day we had the News of the World (can a paper ever have had a less apt title than that?) with 'Good Dole Blighty' - "Migrants who flock in ‘to work’ collect benefits costing millions." "TENS of thousands of immigrants are claiming the DOLE - just months after arriving in Britain supposedly to WORK," screamed the following line.
Basically the piece seeks to paint a picture of 'hoards' of scrounging foreigners coming 'over here' to 'ponce off the country', completely ignoring the fact that access to benefits in the UK is severely restricted and not all migrants to the UK are here to WORK. The two groups that are able to claim Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), which is what we understand they mean when they claim that "In the last six years a staggering 169,000 immigrant workers claimed unemployment benefit within six months of getting a National Insurance number", are EEA national exercising Treaty rights and person with indefinite leave to enter / remain in the country. [See: Benefits for non-UK nationals]
The first group are covered by reciprocal EU welfare benefits legislation which we're sure even the NoW would not decry. The second are those people given asylum under international treaties and must therfore also be given the right to the full protection of UK law (something which the NoW doesn't appear to agree with however given the editorial line followed in this and other articles about anything to do with things foreign). All other groups including third country national (nationals of a non-EU country) with limited leave to remain and those so-called A8 and A2 nationals (unless registered under the Worker Registration and Worker Authorisation Schemes respectively and have been in 1 year continuous employment) are not eligible for JSA.
MigrationBotch of course got a quote in this too: "This is appalling. The government should explain who these people are and why they're able to claim benefits without having paid a penny into the system." Er, but there are numerous people who claim benefits without ever having worked. Child benefit is paid to parents on behalf of their children, the physically and mentally 'disabled' who may have never worked in their life of course are also entitled to state benefits. Yet then again, the reactionary 'libertarian' minimal state right wish people to stand (or fall) on their own with little or no state aid. Survival of the fittest and all that (completely misunderstanding Darwin).
Addition: We forgot to include another James Slack (by name, slack by nature) piece from 1 Jan entitled 'Foreign workers take 22,000 jobs amid recession', which covered the Mail's favourite current Tory shadow minister, Damien Green, attempting to prove that "Gordon Brown's promise to deliver 'British jobs for British workers' was a sham" by playing up the numbers of non-EEA workers in the UK.
"The number of foreign-born workers has rocketed by 22,000 during the worst recession on record. At the same time, the number of British-born employees slumped by 625,000."
"It found that while the number of British-born workers slumped to 25,104,000 in the year to June, those born outside the UK increased to 3,730,000. This was fuelled in part by a 12,000 leap in number of Eastern Europeans, to 518,000."
So this means that 2.4% of 'British-born' workers lost their jobs, whilst at the same time the number of non-EEA workers increased by 0.27%, equivalent to 3.5% of those 'British-born' workers who lost their jobs. Hardly a breath-taking set of statistics Mr Slack.
[1] Help is at hand for those of you slightly confused by how tightening the definition of who is and who isn't family would help: "In particular, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and first cousins should no longer be included. This would reduce the number of eligible relatives by up to 68." But that's not even a 50% reduction.
[2] In 2000 there were 137 appeals, 2001 4,366, 2002 7,997. Then there was a change in counting procedure; 2003/4 16,884, 2004/5 30,643, 2005/6 58,495, 2006/7 50,065 & 2007/8 64,669.
[3] Remember the claim earlier that since the abolition in 2002 the figure had increased 8 times i.e. in 8 years, equivalent to a doubling year-on-year.
[4] The piece of course came replete with the compulsory photograph of Calais migrants, with the accompanying legend "Alert: These illegal immigrants were caught by police at Calais but some of those who have reached Britain have worked for official bodies" just in case you hadn't noticed the reference, and a particularly scarey picture of MigrationBotch's Alan Green looking like an extremely constipated frog.
[5] Interestingly, the Mail do not appear particularly happy with New Tory Dave and his gang, especially when it comes to the immigration issue, and are not banging the Tory Party drum too forcefully. Add to that the fact that almost every person on their on-line readers' comment pages sounds like either a UKIP or BNP voter, it is not hard to understand why.
[6] One of which was repeated almost verbatim beneath his constipated frog photo. The other was a repeat of his tired old claim that there are nearly one million 'illegal' immigrants in the UK.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
The Shame-Faced Lie About Immigration
pace 'The two-faced truth about immigration'.
As part on the New Year's onslaught by the yellow press against immigration, in this case the Labour government's immigration policy and practice, in its Sunday edition the Mail, the self-styled 'Last Bulwark Against The Tide Of Filth That Is Threatening To Engulf Civilisation'™, published an opinion piece laying out some of its twisted take said immigration policy.
Claiming that Labour has two immigration policies, the public one - "supposedly tough restrictions, raids on employers of illegal workers, expulsions of those with no right to stay here" - (which it doesn't actually come out and claim is a lies) and the 'real' one - mass immigration as social engineering, courtesy of Andrew Neather, former speech writer for Tony Blair and adviser to Jack Straw and currently working for the Evening Standard ('nuff siad).
So far, so very Daily Mail.
Then we get a very revealing statement: "This is accompanied by a widespread belief among the new elite that immigration – which provides them with cheap childcare and a great variety of restaurants – is an unmixed blessing." So now we know where the Mail is really coming from - lost privilege and power. And not just for those "others" that "see a different aspect", such as "familiar neighbourhoods changed out of all recognition". Ah nostalgia for a lost time when those that run the Daily Mail believed their view of the world was THE view, pre-decimalisation, even pre-war (WWII), before the Black Shirt went out of 'fashion' and when Herr Hitler was doing 'wonders for unemployment' in Germany.
Oh, and definitely pre-EU: "Thanks to our membership of the European Union, it can in any case only control migration from outside the EU." More Mail-ite fantasy. The reality is that the UK has more opt-outs that the U.S. Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service, and they include the Schengen Agreement, large chunks of the ECHR and European Immigration law, including the recent Lisbon Treaty.
Let's face it, the Mail exists in a fantasy world where Queen Victoria is still on the throne aged 180 and men run around with red flags in front of cars that travel at 2 mph in built-up areas. Where there was still a British Empire and where shooting 'fuzzy-wuzzies' was still considered a sport.
"What is needed is for the elite [there we go again] to acknowledge openly that the existing policy is wrong and damaging to our society and that opposition to mass immigration is reasonable and civilised [or any form of racism come to think of it]."
"Then it can devise rules that have real force behind them, and ensure that in future those rules will be efficiently and energetically enforced." Sounds exactly like the sort of thing coming out of the pages of the Mail in the 30's when it was singing the praises of the new 'German social experiment'!
As part on the New Year's onslaught by the yellow press against immigration, in this case the Labour government's immigration policy and practice, in its Sunday edition the Mail, the self-styled 'Last Bulwark Against The Tide Of Filth That Is Threatening To Engulf Civilisation'™, published an opinion piece laying out some of its twisted take said immigration policy.
Claiming that Labour has two immigration policies, the public one - "supposedly tough restrictions, raids on employers of illegal workers, expulsions of those with no right to stay here" - (which it doesn't actually come out and claim is a lies) and the 'real' one - mass immigration as social engineering, courtesy of Andrew Neather, former speech writer for Tony Blair and adviser to Jack Straw and currently working for the Evening Standard ('nuff siad).
So far, so very Daily Mail.
Then we get a very revealing statement: "This is accompanied by a widespread belief among the new elite that immigration – which provides them with cheap childcare and a great variety of restaurants – is an unmixed blessing." So now we know where the Mail is really coming from - lost privilege and power. And not just for those "others" that "see a different aspect", such as "familiar neighbourhoods changed out of all recognition". Ah nostalgia for a lost time when those that run the Daily Mail believed their view of the world was THE view, pre-decimalisation, even pre-war (WWII), before the Black Shirt went out of 'fashion' and when Herr Hitler was doing 'wonders for unemployment' in Germany.
Oh, and definitely pre-EU: "Thanks to our membership of the European Union, it can in any case only control migration from outside the EU." More Mail-ite fantasy. The reality is that the UK has more opt-outs that the U.S. Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service, and they include the Schengen Agreement, large chunks of the ECHR and European Immigration law, including the recent Lisbon Treaty.
Let's face it, the Mail exists in a fantasy world where Queen Victoria is still on the throne aged 180 and men run around with red flags in front of cars that travel at 2 mph in built-up areas. Where there was still a British Empire and where shooting 'fuzzy-wuzzies' was still considered a sport.
"What is needed is for the elite [there we go again] to acknowledge openly that the existing policy is wrong and damaging to our society and that opposition to mass immigration is reasonable and civilised [or any form of racism come to think of it]."
"Then it can devise rules that have real force behind them, and ensure that in future those rules will be efficiently and energetically enforced." Sounds exactly like the sort of thing coming out of the pages of the Mail in the 30's when it was singing the praises of the new 'German social experiment'!
Friday, 1 January 2010
Thatcher: What We Always Knew
Well, the tabloids and the rest of the yellow press have had a field day, singing Thatcher's praises (as a cover for their own racism) as her preference for white Rhodesians over the Vietnamese 'boat people' is revealed in newly released Cabinet papers from 30 years ago. [see: 1, 2, 3]
In one breath she was lecturing Kosygin, the then Soviet Premier, over his criticism of the 'boat people' as "drug-takers or criminals", claiming they were "hard-working people" fleeing Communism, then claiming that there would be riots in the streets if the Vietnamese were given council housing ahead of "white citizens".
At the time thousands of the Vietnamese refugees were living in squalid camps in Hong Kong and the then Foreign Secretary, Peter Carrington, who had already visited the camps, had suggested that it was Britain's duty to take 10,000 of them over two years, much to Thatcher's horror.*
Her response was to claim, just as people have done since Malthus that there were too many people in the UK and instead she approached the Australian prime minister at the time, Malcolm Fraser, asking for his country's help in buying an island in Indonesia or the Philippines to house the 'boat people'. All this after Britain had up till then accepted only a handful of Vietnamese for resettlement in the UK!
* Australia became home to about 220,000 Vietnamese, Canada took slightly more, the US more than a million and France about 90,000. In contrast the UK accepted only 22,500 Vietnamese displaced persons between 1979-92. As for figures for individual years, 1974 saw 32 Vietnamese 'boat people' accepted into the UK, 1975 (the year of the fall of Saigon) 300, and 1976 just three. We have been unable to find figures for 1977-79.
In one breath she was lecturing Kosygin, the then Soviet Premier, over his criticism of the 'boat people' as "drug-takers or criminals", claiming they were "hard-working people" fleeing Communism, then claiming that there would be riots in the streets if the Vietnamese were given council housing ahead of "white citizens".
At the time thousands of the Vietnamese refugees were living in squalid camps in Hong Kong and the then Foreign Secretary, Peter Carrington, who had already visited the camps, had suggested that it was Britain's duty to take 10,000 of them over two years, much to Thatcher's horror.*
Her response was to claim, just as people have done since Malthus that there were too many people in the UK and instead she approached the Australian prime minister at the time, Malcolm Fraser, asking for his country's help in buying an island in Indonesia or the Philippines to house the 'boat people'. All this after Britain had up till then accepted only a handful of Vietnamese for resettlement in the UK!
* Australia became home to about 220,000 Vietnamese, Canada took slightly more, the US more than a million and France about 90,000. In contrast the UK accepted only 22,500 Vietnamese displaced persons between 1979-92. As for figures for individual years, 1974 saw 32 Vietnamese 'boat people' accepted into the UK, 1975 (the year of the fall of Saigon) 300, and 1976 just three. We have been unable to find figures for 1977-79.
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