Wednesday 31 October 2007

Good = Discrimination

On Thought for Today (BBC Radio 4) today the speaker said that in 1601 Queen Elizabeth said all blackamores should be deported. (He didn't give his source.) He went on to say that when it was announced in church that two Nigerians had acquired British citizenship the whole congregation applauded. He wondered what Queen Elizabeth would have made of it.
The present Queen (I think she's not the Second of that name, since the Union of the Crowns was in 1603) said disapprovingly in her 2004 Christmas Message: "Discrimination still exists!"
She should have said it approvingly. There can be no good without discrimination.
It is not good that foreign and Commonwealth men can use marriage as a means of living and working in the UK. A law that closed that loophole would be a good law. (It doesn't, of course, mean that a woman with the "right" to permanent residence in the UK would not be allowed to live here with her husband - just that marriage is not relevant to his visa/entry stamp.)
My guess is that England's (as distinct from Britain's) Elizabeth would agree with me.

Question for biblical scholars: Do you imagine Jesus would applaud people taking other people's territory?

Monday 29 October 2007

Secular Concession

The Conservatives' Leader, David Cameron, spoke in Parliament today about arranged marriages being used as a means of migration to the UK.
They could have been cut by at least half at a stroke if the Conservatives had honoured their 1979 election promise to end the "concession" whereby foreign men can live in the UK through marriage.
They didn't, because of the issue of human rights.
But there's nothing about border controls in human rights legislation.
If the concept of human rights means anything it means human dignity and is either universal (see 'In our hands' - the effectiveness of human rights protection 50 years after the Universal Declaration, Strasbourg, 2-4 September 1998, page 7) or non-existent. As such, it is sometimes said that its underlying basis is in the divine.
The "bible" for the concept is Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, who was a deist. He wasn't a Christian, but he believed in a Supreme Being.
I tend to. I also tend to believe there is no such thing as "rights"; there are only good laws. The argument as to what constitutes a good law is currently being subverted by the word "rights".
Allowing foreign men (the "right") to live in the UK through marriage is not a "right". They could live, with their wives, in their own countries.
If I were a foreigner coming to these islands I would want children both in order to bolster my "right" to residence and to increase the numbers (and political power) of my group.
Being an Englishman, I don't want children....

Sunday 28 October 2007

Beyond Belief

On the BBC World Services' UK Politics Today programme this morning migration to the UK was discussed by Labour MP Ann Cryer and Conservative MP Mr. Mercer. The former said that 80% of marriages in part of her Keighley constituency was transcontinental, and that in three primary schools (another on stream) 95% of the pupils didn't speak English. She complained about it, but she made no suggestion whatsoever as to what should be done. She could have suggested that the government change the law along the lines of Conservative policy at the time of the 1979 General Election. In which case, those young men who come from Pakistan and Bangladesh to live in her constituency would remain in their own countries.
The Conservatives' policy of 1979 was defeated by the notion of "equality". But even if Englishmen could live in Pakistan and Bangladesh through marriage it would have nothing like the same demographic effect on those countries as does allowing their young men to take up permanent residence in England. Like is not being compared with like.
It's no wonder Bangladeshi men want to come here. If they apply to the Grameen Bank for a loan they won't get one. It lends to women only. If it had been for men only Dr. Yunus would not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh rates higher on the Happy Planet Index than the United Kingdom.
Mr. Mercer said there was no unemployment in his Newark constituency, because immigrants were busy building houses for themselves to live in. At least he didn't pretend that it was beneficial to the UK.
A few hours later, BBC Radio 4's Sunday Worship (from Aberystwyth) thanked God for the stability that prevails in Britain.

Thursday 25 October 2007

Discrimination = Good

William Whitelaw, Mrs. Thatcher's first Home Secretary, stated on 7 April 1978 (Conservative Central Office, 487/78): "All countries are entitled as a mark of their national sovereignty to have their own nationality and immigration laws...
"... [I]n 1969, Mr. Callaghan concluded that marriage was being abused by many young men of working age as a means of entering, working and settling in this country. His words were true then and I believe they are as true today...."
The Conservatives duly promised at the time of the 1979 General Election to "end the concession introduced by the Labour government in 1974 to husbands and male fiances."
The Equal Opportunities Commission vigorously opposed this measure, and its 1978 Policy Statement concludes: "Although nationality law is excluded from the provisions of the Act, the Commission, in order to fufil its statutory duty, must draw to the attention of the government and the public those areas in which discrimination on grounds of sex are prevalent and make recommendations."
It is fair to discriminate. A judge who couldn't discriminate right from wrong or good from bad wouldn't (or shouldn't) be a judge.
In campaigning to enable foreign and Commonwealth men to occupy the UK through marriage the EOC promoted inequality, because:
1. Native British men often cannot live and work abroad through marriage.
2. The UK's "equality" laws entitle foreign men to deprive native British men of work and promotion. (Even though their countries don't have such laws.)
3. The unequal ratio of the sexes of young people (more young men than young women) is exacerbated.
4. Overcrowding is exacerbated. (England is reputedly the most crowded country in the world.)
5. People in multi-national marriages have a choice of countries to live in. This is a great advantage if there is a natural disaster, war, etc.
6. While foreign men are taking advantage of this loophole, British servicemen are dying (and being wounded) in Iraq and Afghanistan (and anywhere else they may be sent).
7. Foreigners like it here or they wouldn't be here. By contrast, many Englishmen (besides myself) have much unhappiness because of this self-inflicted (more accurately, enforced) situation. Few inequalities are worse than that.
8. Native British men do not have the same access to British law as do other people. (My request for legal aid concerning this issue was turned down by the Law Society on 31 January 1979, ref: LW1(G)/14/1/78/12966 Z - though it was not denied to other people.) Nor do Britons have any "rights" regarding immigration to the UK.
On 28 May 1985 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled in the case of Mrs. Abdulaziz, Mrs. Balkandali and Mrs. Cabales that not allowing their husbands to live and work in the UK amounted to sex discrimination.
Inasmuch as sex discrimination is natural (we'd none of us be here without it) it is good.

Wednesday 24 October 2007

Shocking

BBC Radio 4 News reported 23 October that the United Kingdom's population is predicted to increase by 5 million over the next 10 years, and this was described as "shocking" by the Conservatives.
It is the Conservatives who are "shocking". Because in 1979 (under Mrs. Thatcher) the Conservatives did not honour their election promise to end the concession whereby foreign men can live in the UK through marriage. The figure at the time was about 10,000 men a year taking advantage of this immigration loophole. If each of those 10,000 men/year has 2 children, then, if the Conservatives had honoured their pledge, that would mean that these days about 1 million people would now be living somewhere other than the UK.
It is problematic whether the UK exists in 10 years (bearing in mind the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 2014). England (the land of the English) will seem misnamed.