What is the Great Privilege of our Times?

It is at times like this (a devastating world-wide pandemic) that an extraordinary privilege becomes apparent. This is the ability to live in two different countries (excepting the UK's 4 countries & the EU). People in transnational marriages have this privilege. Women always; men sometimes. This makes miscegenation very attractive. The UK is obsessed about equality but foreign men can live here through marriage. This rank privilege is (partly) because the Equal Opportunities Commission campaigned vigorously to defeat Mrs Thatcher's 1979 election promise to end it. Immigration was later determined by the House of Lords on 7 July 1983 to be outside the ambit of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. The EOC was legally required to support complaints by men as well as women, but its response to my complaint about this in 1977 was that it was outside its ambit. Nevertheless, the EOC - as stated above - spent public money campaigning hard and successfully to defeat Government policy. Public money spent to enable foreigners live in the UK....

Mrs Humphry Ward (1852-1920), "the greatest woman of her time"

When the novelist Mrs Humphry Ward died 100 years ago on 24 March 1920 she was called "the greatest woman of her time". In 1908 she founded the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. Also in 1908 she founded the Passmore Edwards Settlement for orphans in London's Tavistock Square. It is now called the Mary Ward Centre. In 1916 she went closer to the British front line than any other woman gathering material for a book that was intended to encourage the Americans to join in the War. The horrors she described probably had the opposite effect. In the 1970s I requested the Greater London Council to put up a plaque to Mrs Ward on the Mary Ward Centre. This was refused on the grounds she hadn't lived there.

The Abuse of Power

Patricia Hewitt called her part in the campaign to stop Mrs Thatcher from implementing her 1979 election promise to stop foreign men from using marriage to live in the UK her "most satisfying achievement". Her 1982 book was called "The Abuse of Power". But she herself held power in Tony Blair's Government as Equality Minister. And allowing foreign men to live in the UK through marriage gives British (and British resident) women a great privilege, because they can live in their husband's country as well as the UK. Protecting and sustaining privilege is clearly an abuse of power. Now, in addition to "equality" laws that entitle foreigners to deprive Brits of work & promotion there is the "inequality" law known as "positive action" that puts native British men last when it comes to recruitment. The BBC has adopted this unjust policy. Which is ironic because George Orwell, who worked at the BBC, famously wrote "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Modern detective dramas invariably have women in dominant roles. So messing with the classics in this way is a tyranny and an abuse of power. The latest instance, in the news, is that a minor female character in H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" is now the main character in a new BBC version. For more on this theme please see this blog of 26 July 2018 and 10 March 2019. Thanks!

A Serious Cause for Impeachment

President Trump's impeachment should be dismissed as "frivolous". But there is a serious matter for which he should be impeached. The President allows foreigners permanent residence in the USA even though Americans can't have permanent residence in their countries. In Britain, legal aid is given for immigration. So in 1980, having been granted legal aid for my divorce, I then applied for legal aid to bring a case of Treason against Mrs Thatcher for allowing foreigners to live in the UK while I and other Brits can't live in their countries. But the Law Society rejected my request. … How unctuous and oft have we heard the mantra: No one is above the law. But access to the law is not available to all. Foreigners can and do go to law to enable them to live in a country. But the native inhabitants have no such access to prevent them. This is a systemic imbalance. Besides, people eligible for legal aid have a risk-free access to the law, while others don't. This gives them an unfair advantage and is another serious systemic imbalance.

Bad immigration makes for Fake "equality"

The Archbishop of York came to Britain because of Idi Amin. The Ugandan dictator is long gone, but the Archbishop is still here. This is a serious flaw in the asylum system. His successor next June has already said he will promote "diversity". Unequal immigration laws (biased against Brits) result in fake "equality". Everyone in the world in a war zone has the legal right to set up home anywhere in the UK. Take back control of our borders makes no sense unless and until we Leave the 1948 UN Convention on Refugees. So, come on, Boris Johnson, "Get it done!" Just sign a piece of paper. Baby Jesus was allowed into Egypt because the Egyptians and/or Romans had control of their borders, not because of a decades-old international agreement. And he soon returned to his own country.

The Struggle to Cast a Vote

In the 3 TV debates in the run-up to the 2010 General Election immigration was the most discussed topic next to the economy. The Conservatives' David Cameron said he wanted a "cap"; Labour's Gordon Brown said he wanted a "points system" - he was Prime Minister, so he could have had a points system, but didn't!;and LibDem's Nick Clegg said he wanted to legalise the status of illegal aliens (which he also said, 3 times, wasn't an amnesty). What must foreigners think of all this? I wondered. They must think we're all daft! I didn't want to waste my vote, so I voted UKIP. But I voted Remain in the 23 June 2016 EU Referendum. (My reasons are in this blog of 10 June 2016.) One-third of the electorate didn't vote in the election of 12 December 2019. #Me too. I didn't. The Conservatives won with a big majority, and a promise to Leave the European Union and to bring in an immigration points system. This latter promise is a smokescreen to disguise what could/should be done but won't be - e.g.ending the privilege of Muslims to bring in 4 "wives" and their children to live in the UK; reforming the chaotic asylum system; and stopping foreign men from using marriage to live in the UK....Not to mention deporting the over 1 million people who are living illegally in the UK, contrary to the much-vaunted Rule of Law championed by Western democracies.....

Border Control

Election Promises! We will control our borders! How can Conservative politicians get away with saying this when everyone can see that illegal aliens aren't deported? The UK Border Force (which, perversely, helps them get to England! contrary to its original purpose)is allowed to operate in France. This great concession may well be denied after the UK leaves the European Union. As it is, the UK is greatly privileged because, together with the Republic of Ireland, it's not signed up to the Shengen Agreement, and so is independent of much of the EU's immigration laws.