35 Years of Wrong "Rights"

Some Leavers voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 Referendum because they don't like human rights interventions in immigration cases. But European human rights are nothing to do with the EU. They are the province of the Council of Europe, set up in Strasbourg in 1951 in response to Second World War atrocities. Therefore the last thing human rights should do is to enable minorities to establish themselves in Europe..... In 1977 I knew that the European Convention on Human Rights would be used to challenge Mrs Thatcher's intended policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK. So on 10 June 1977 I complained to the European Commission of Human Rights that the British Government allows foreign men to live in the UK through marriage even though I (and other British men) cannot live in their countries through marriage.... This, surely, is what human rights were meant to prevent. I cited Article 3 of the Convention: "cruel and inhuman treatment". But the Commission rejected my complaint on the grounds I hadn't been subject to a decision by a Government body. So I complained to the Equal Opportunities Commission, which I knew was campaigning against Conservative Party policy to end this concession. Its response was that my complaint was outside its ambit. So I complained to the European Commission about the EOC. Its response (eventually) was that I should challenge the EOC in the UK courts. To this end I applied for legal aid for which I was financially eligible. But the Law Society rejected my request.... 35 years ago today the European Court of Human Rights determined in favour of 3 (non-British) women whose husbands weren't allowed to live in the UK. This was the final nail in the coffin of Mrs Thatcher's 1979 election manifesto promise. The British Government's response was to make it harder for foreign wives to live in the UK. ("The Times" 29 May 1985, page 1.) Which is a cause of much hardship, as described in this blog of 22 February 2017.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it must be a wife

Lawyers are deeply involved in immigration, often at public expense. Muslims can bring 4 "wives" to live in the UK. So it's about time lawyers prosecuted the Home Secretary and/or Prime Minister for allowing bigamists to live here..... Doubtless the 4 wives Muslims are allowed to bring to the UK aren't called "wives" for the purpose of conforming to British law. Because bigamy is illegal. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it must be a wife.

The Rule of Law

It's normal to think people who enter a country illegally are breaking the law. But they're not if the intention is to claim asylum. People in Northern France scheming to cross the English Channel to England and who haven't claimed asylum in France are breaking the law by being in France. The Rule of Law is one of the pillars of the European Union. So they should be deported. But they aren't, which enables them to cross the Channel legally...... Asylum seekers are entitled to 3 appeals. That's 4 cracks of the whip! It's like having a referendum, not liking the result, and having 3 more. If native Brits don't like the first decision they don't have any appeals to contest it. Justice requires balance. And that's a serious imbalance..... There's a huge backlog of immigration cases. Allowing appeals takes time, and time enables newcomers to form friendships, put down roots, and devise a means of disappearing underground if the last appeal fails. This situation is a failure of governance, incompetence and a dereliction of duty for failing to protect our borders. It has also been going on a long time.

Past Caring; Present Injustice

The coronavirus has focussed on care homes and their disjuncture with the NHS. But what is neglected in these media reports is that people have to sell their homes in order to pay for going into a care home. Which means their children are losing their expected inheritance which these parents have worked long and hard for. By contrast, the immigration industry (legal aid lawyers, Advisors, NGOs, Tribunals) is largely funded by the British taxpayer. The Government can find money to enable foreigners to occupy these islands, but it can't make care homes as free for elderly patients just as the NHS is free for all and sundry. (In fairness, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he intends to end this discrepancy.)