The Heart of the Matter

The European Commission of Human Rights was set up after the Second World War in response to its atrocities. Surely, therefore, the last thing it should do is facilitate people from outside Europe to take up permanent residence in Europe. Instead it should support a complaint to prevent that from happening. In 1977 (10 June) I complained to the ECHR that the UK allows foreign and Commonwealth men to live in the UK through marriage even though I (and other British men) cannot live in their countries through marriage. I wrote (26 August): "the 1971 Census revealed that in Great Britain there were 1,660,690 unmarried men in their 20s as compared with 973,425 unmarried women in their 20s. This shows there was a surplus of 687,265 single men in that age group." The ECHR wouldn't investigate my complaint on the grounds I had not been the victim of a Government decision. The Government's official figure at that time for the number of men allowed to live in the UK through marriage was about 10,000 a year. About a dozen years ago I read in the Press the number was over 15,000 a year.