A letter to the Times which was published on 19th January 2012.

It is not “cultural relativism” as Professor Vernon Bogdanor puts it (Wednesday 18th January) to uphold the principle that British laws are there primarily for the benefit of British citizens.

As it is, in the teeth of the British people’s opposition, unelected judges have systematically extended British law and our system of welfare benefits to foreign nationals to such an extent that British citizens now have no unique right or benefit as citizens, except the carrying of a British passport.  Soft British legal practices on asylum and welfare benefits are known all over Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, making Britain a target for anybody who fancies an improvement in their standard of living (see benefits report, January 18th) or who has fallen out with their own government.

Despite Vernon Bogdanor’s assertion to the contrary (and it is only his assertion), British judges are not paid to transfer, in effect, the privileges of being a British citizen to all and sundry under the guise of human rights.  Nor has the European Court of Human Rights the power to stop the deportation of Abu Qatada back to Jordan. The ECHR has given what is simply an opinion on the case.  The British government is free, as it always has been, to ignore the opinions of any foreign court and the disapproval of the human rights industry here at home.  Only British courts have jurisdiction over the British government and they are not bound by the ECHR either, though too often they give the impression that they are.

Question from Angela Simmonds

I feel it is doubly unfortunate that the voice-over in UKIP’s latest video on immigration was scripted to say in the closing remarks that the first thing to do is to leave the EU. Nobody in the country believes this is an imminent possibility and so the DVD is only helping to spread a mood of helpless resignation to the swamping of the British people by foreigners.

As it is, the coalition is claiming the credit for restricting the flow of some classes of non-EU immigrant, which will help a little, but won’t touch the flow from Africa and the Indian subcontinent (containing together about 2.5 billion people) due to marriages, other “family reasons”, and the continued flow of asylum cases let in by the judges.

UKIP has a policy on which many of us fought the last General Election and this is for a complete halt to all immigration for settlement for 5 years while the country has the chance to formulate a population policy and deal with the huge backlog of illegals. We aways made it clear that pending our leaving the EU, this halt would apply where we could apply it, i.e. to non EU immigrants, which are now revealed to be 80% of all immigrants to the UK.

It is key to UKIP getting acceptance as a major force in British politics that it pushes in the direction of policies it believes in, even if, because of EU membership, it can’t get the whole loaf.

Another current example is this:

Removing the UK from the European Convention is entirely do-able without leaving the EU, despite the myth being propagated in some legal circles that the Lisbon Treaty forbids it. (In fact the Treaty does not touch any aspects of the UK’s administration of justice under the protocol 30 opt-outs.) UKIP should put its weight behind leaving the ECHR, which would be hugely popular in the country. Even if in the short term Cameron bodges some fudge to keep us in, UKIP will get the credit and exposure for advocating the move, and create a reputation for standing up for the British people, which will help even in council elections.

Comment

From Effiong on 27th October 2015 at 10.42 pm
Effiong says:
When I was 17, and first passed my driving test, I delivered pizza around Martlesham, Kesgrave and the surrounding rural area. I support the freedom of movement of people, but don’t think for one second that this doesn’t have an effect. How many 17 year-olds are there out there who now cannot work because someone else is prepared to do it more flexibly and often cheaper – minimum wage prosecutions have gone down under this Government, but breaches haven’t…

A letter to the Times which was published on 20th January 2003.

Ann Widdecombe’s defence of her proposed system of secure holding centres for all asylum-seekers (letter, January 16th) is sound as far as it goes.  It does not, however, take the measure of the truly desperate situation which nearly six years of Labour Government has brought about, starting with the abolition of the primary purpose rule and other reversals of the previous Government’s policy.

Asylum and immigration have been confused, deliberately so in my view, by the supposed labour shortages in the British economy.  With 15 million currently unemployed, 155,000 jobs lost in manufacturing last year (Business, January 16th), many thousands currently being made redundant in the IT and financial sectors, and possibly one third of 16-year-olds (around 250,000 per year) according to the Department for Education and Skills ill-equipped to participate fully in the economy, we have in this country not a labour shortage, but a massively unbalanced labour force.  The few hundred degree-holders among the hundreds of thousands in the asylum/immigration queue are very unlikely to have the practical skills this country really needs.  The overwhelming majority will not even speak English.

A complete moratorium on non-patrial immigration and asylum for, say, five years is the only measure which will allow the backlog of what I estimate to be between 500,000 and a million asylum-seekers and dependants to be cleared.

The Government could also use this five-year breathing space to enact enforceable laws for asylum and immigration drawn up after consultation with the British people, preferably in conformity with a new international convention to replace the outdated 1951 Convention on Refugees, but if necessary without it.