"Is there any point in being English?"

This headline was used for the following article I had published in my then local newspaper on 20 August 1987: "I set out for Asia in 1959, but everywhere I went I was not allowed to work. After living like a tramp - not eating, always saving my money for fares - I finally returned to the UK in 1962 when, under Labour pressure, the Commonwealth Immigration Act was deliberately delayed to enable people who wanted to come to live and work in the UK to do so. If I had been able to work in Asia through marriage, my whole life would have been different. Also, one reason I got married in 1966 was because foreign and Commonwealth men use this as a means to occupy the UK. I am now divorced. It was not until 1969 that the UK closed this loophole. But in 1974 Roy Jenkins, under feminist pressure, reopened it. 1975 was International Women's Year. So I asked of the UN that some future year be designated International Men's Year. I was informed that such a request could only come from a government. My request of the British Government was met with the response that there is no popular demand for one. In 1977 I knew that people who were not allowed to live and work in the UK were appealing to the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and sometimes winning. So I complained to the ECHR that foreign and Commonwealth men can live and work in the UK through marriage even though I cannot live and work in their countries through marriage. The ECHR's response was that it could only investigate a complaint by someone who was a victim of a decision by a public body. So I put my complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission, which was hen campaigning against Conservative Party policy to end this 'concession'. The EOC's response was that my complaint was outside its ambit. I then complained to the ECHR about the EOC failing to support my complaint. I was informed I should challenge the EOC in the UK courts. To this end I sought legal aid but, though I qualified on financial grounds, I was not given a legal aid certificate. In May 1982 the ECHR determined that complaints by the three women whose husbands were not allowed to live and work in the UK were admissible. So while British men were dying on and around the Falklands, foreign lawyers were determining that foreign people have rights to occupy British sovereign territory. Not only is that the last thing the ECHR should do, but it acted against its own rules. Article 26 of the Convention had not been complied with; not all domestic remedies had been exhausted, because it was not until July 7 1983 that the House of Lords determined that the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 does not apply to immigration control. This was in the case of Regina vs Entry Clearance Officer, Bombay, Ex parte Amin. If Mrs A, B and C are happily married then they have no real grievance. They can live with their husbands in their own countries. But in addition to not being happily married, or wanting children, or living elsewhere, I have the grievance that native British men have no rights to prevent immigration. And they might as well not have the Parliamentary vote. When Mrs Thatcher was elected in 1979 she emphasised that she would honour all her promises. Imagine my surprise when it was announced on October 29 1979 that she had given up on this issue. When the Minister, Timothy Raison, was asked by Douglas Stewart on Radio Four why foreign men would still be allowed to live in the UK through marriage while we cannot do that, he said it was because of the fuss. It is a similar situation to the First World War. While British men are in conflict with other men, some British women with male supporters are in conflict with British men. The EOC has its origin in the Queen's 1967 Christmas message. The very last thing the Queen should do is support one section of the community against the other."