"I have never welcomed the weakening of family ties by politics or pressure" - Nelson Mandela.
"He who travels for love finds a thousand miles no longer than one" - Japanese proverb.
"Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." - Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
"When people's love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change". -
David Cameron.

Tuesday 14 May 2013

A change in the weather?

Via a contact, and purely anecdotal at the moment, but an interesting observation :

''I am seeing an awful lot of people from the USA, Canada, and Australia, (on the boards) who have come to visit someone they are romantically involved with, being turned away at the UK border.

'Those are countries that do not require 'Visitor Visas.'

'Other than being 'romantically involved' with a UK citizen, they are exactly like any other tourist. They have jobs, homes, return tickets.

'People are even being turned away when they present their return tickets.

'They are not 'coming into the UK too often' or even attempting to stay the full 6 months permitted.

'This is not normal. It was not like this in the past.'


It also occurs to me that https://twitter.com/tntmagazine may be interested in tracking this. It would be good to get actual numbers on what is going on.
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Following a suggestion, I sent a thankyou note to the Archbishop of Westminster in response to his intervention on the unjust treatment of migrant partners as noted here :
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/latest-news/5280

I got the following, very nice response :

 'Dear Steve,

Archbishop Vincent thanks you very much for your email and attachment. He is glad that you found his homily helpful. He will continue to pray for a just treatment of migrants.

He sends you his greetings, as do I,'

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Francisca ( http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/barry-francisca-and-millie-francisca.html ) posts :

3 weeks until our Tribunal date. If you haven't yet signed please do so and encourage anyone else to support us please so we can reach 1000 signatures:) Once we have them, we can print them and present them to the judge as part of our evidentary bundle. Also, I want to invite anyone who is interested in our case to assist the tribunal hearing on June 3rd at 10.15 am at Tier1 tribunals, Glasgow. Thank you guys:) xx

Save Millie and her mum from deportation :
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-millie-and-her-mum-from-deportation.html
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Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto: Sex slaves in World War Two were necessary to 'maintain discipline' for Japanese military.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/osaka-mayor-toru-hashimoto-sex-slaves-in-world-war-two-were-necessary-to-maintain-discipline-for-japanese-military-8614959.html

Mr Hashimoto is co-head of the newly formed Japan Restoration Party with former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who is a strident nationalist.

He's also the Nigel Farage of Japanese politics - populist and dangerous :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dru_Hashimoto
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Britain gets serious in addressing the very lucrative business of human trafficking.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/europe/tackling-modern-day-slavery

You could see that from the place where we found the victims of the traffickers. A house converted into flats on a main thoroughfare, right opposite Earls Court exhibition centre in fashionable west London.

While waiting for the police to bring the women out we did some more maths. Seven women in five flats. Each flat would be rented by the traffickers for about 2500 dollars a month.

That means the traffickers must make $140,000 before they turn a profit on one property alone, and still it is incredibly lucrative.

The police said that Earls Court was full of similar places, so even if you accept they recognise the scale of this even they'd agree that they're far from on top of it. It's slavery, right under the noses of people driving to work and getting on the underground.


http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/sex-slave-ring-in-luxury-flats-is-smashed-by-police-in-dawn-raids-8615416.html
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Home secretary Theresa May warned on shortage of fruit pickers.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8a3b708c-bc8d-11e2-b344-00144feab7de.html#axzz2TIg6Wonr

Theresa May has been warned that Britain’s £3bn horticulture industry will be at risk unless she moves to fill a predicted labour shortage by allowing Ukrainians, Russians and Moldovans to pick fruit and vegetables on UK farms.

Independent advisers told the Home Secretary that supermarkets may eventually be forced to abandon home-grown produce such as strawberries, asparagus and daffodils if labour shortages force up wage costs.

The advice presents a conundrum for Ms May who must weigh pressure from farmers to allow more low-cost workers in against her drive to cut immigration.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-urged-to-allow-more-noneu-foreign-fruit-pickers-8616324.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/14/agricultural-workers-ukraine-future-may
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https://twitter.com/BritCits immigrant of the day :
Austrian-born Hermann Hauser founded JV with Apple=>ARM Holdings,making most phones CPU.#jobs:2,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hauser
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'It's absurd to suggest that Britain can be open for business and closed to immigration.'

http://notthetreasuryview.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-impacts-of-immigration-my-summary.html
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Desperate to sound tough, politicians are in fact making it harder to improve the plight of domestic slaves in Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/13/noise-immigration-drowning-out-real-problems
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Getting to know multicultural London.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/postcard/article3757989.ece
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https://twitter.com/emilyfchurchill tweets :
Check out our first single - for every migrant in London and beyond! http://to.ly/lkob

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