immigration

Big noise, big problem, simple solution?
The noise is deafening, there's so much upset about the politics of the moment. David Cameron's attempts to reform Housing Benefit have, along with the hope of doing the right thing at the EU budget talks, formed a manic duet; and that's this week. Last week the big noise was the proposed Immigration Cap. Alas for the coalition all of these topics are rooted in EU related problems. This is so annoying as the EU was supposed to be a 'done and dusted subject'. It was supposed to go away and leave them to get on on with receiving the adulation of a grateful public happy with the outcomes of their constant efforts on the nation's behalf. These three things: Housing Benefit (HB), the EU budget (EUb) and the Immigration Cap (IC) are related and not just by their decibels and date.

The relationship is based on immigration, economics and welfare and 'fairness'. It will take a while for the heat generated by the HB proposals to turn into light. But even at this early stage common sense tells us that the present way of dealing with HB is unsustainable. Change had to come because we could not economically afford to continue with the current system. While common feeling suggests that when the spotlight falls on the high level levels of immigration into our cities, especially London, this too is not sustainable.

Greek police have clashed with hundreds of migrants waiting to submit asylum applications in Athens. A riot broke out after one would be refugee plunged into a canal in exactly the same place where another asylum seeker was killed earlier this year.

Community leaders and politicians are warning that Athens inner city is at risk of becoming a racial battleground and are appealing for European assistance to defuse rising tension.

This year, Greece, has attracted a record 80 thousand illegal immigrants, but has been criticized by Europe for failing to help asylum seekers.

From Athens, Malcolm Brabant Astons, Hussein Ali, Sudanese political refugee, Anna Diamantapoulou, MP, former European Social Affairs Commissioner, Yiannis Sgouras, Athens Prefect. 6th December 2008

strong ties

Gyanendra Rai, see here, is leading a claim against the Home Office's refusal to grant settlement to Gurkha veterans who served Britain but retired from the regiment before July 1997 because they "failed to demonstrate strong ties to the United Kingdom". Next Tuesday, the case of 15 former Gurkhas and Gurkha widows - representing more than 2,000 of their former colleagues - will return to the high court in London.

A team of human rights lawyers is challenging the lawfulness of the decisions to refuse these men entry visas to the UK. It wants equal rights for those who retired before the regiment's headquarters moved from Hong Kong to the UK following the 1997 handover of the colony to China.

Almost 1,000 Gurkha veterans - many with more than two decades of exemplary service - have been refused visa clearance by British embassies in Kathmandu, Hong Kong and Macau on the grounds that they do not have strong enough ties with the UK. The government argues that since they never lived in the UK, they have no real links with the country. It is estimated that between 7,000 and 10,000 more Gurkha veterans would settle in Britain should they win the case. They would be most welcome.

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Belatedly the mainstream media seem to have realised that there is something wrong in the state of GB. We have a discussion on immigration in the Spectator here which tells us, something we had all known- namely that we have a huge hidden unemployment figures,( using a technique copied and refined from Mrs Thatcher), that most of the 3 million new jobs created under Nulabour have gone to immigrants and foreign workers and that the cost benefit ratio is minimal if not negative. The article says that the taboo on discussing immigration is only just being lifted.

NuLabour election strategy?

On May 5th the BBC repeated throughout the day film of a police and immigration officials raid on a chicken factory in Derbyshire, to which the BBC was invited along to film. In fact the raid took place on April 15th and there was no rush to make it public. See video here.