There have been several entries in this blog over previous months about the pernicious treatment of the Gurkhas by UK Border Agency. I fear without Joanna Lumley's extraordinary media campaign, the issue would still be languishing at the bottom of page nine in most broadsheets. Although, the Opposition won the vote last week, it was in no way binding and these matters invariably slide inexorably back to the previous policy. Officials and Ministers know the might of Departmental inertia is very hard to overcome twice.
So Ms Lumley deserves immense praise for her tenacity in pushing PM into a corner on Wednesday then ambushing and de-bagging the hapless Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas yesterday. His sullen nodding to her every demand reduced Woolas to a schoolboy sobbing before an imperious and unforgiving school Ma'am.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8037181.stm
The Governmnent is now unable to offer Gurkhas anything less than full settlement rights without resuming the "cartwheel of emotion" as JL put it. Brown used Woolas's massively inflated figures of £1.6Bn settlement costs at PMQs last week to justify the block on Gurkhas moving to the UK. The total was based on the assumption all 36,000 Gurkhas plus at least three members of their family would re-settle here. Many are very elderly and too frail to start a new life. All would struggle to find the (non-refundable) cost of £585 for processing an application for residency plus air fares out of £150 a month pension.
David Blunkett warned Ministers had lost their political antennae on this issue thinking illiberal and tough-sounding immigration policies were always popular. But even the dim-witted Woolas should have realised it was time to reverse a policy which put a Labour Government to the right politically of the Mail and Telegraph.
No comments:
Post a Comment