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?
