Pandering to Racism 932


Here in Ghana people are stunned by the announcement that a bond of £3,000 will have to be submitted by visa applicants to the UK, redeemable on return.

It is unpleasant for a nation to be singled out as comprised of particularly untrustworthy individuals against whom special measures are needed.  Theresa May appears quite deliberately to be singling out countries whose citizens are normally black or brown – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria.  They are all citizens with extremely close ties to the UK.  For example, all of those countries supplied large numbers of men to British armed forces in two World Wars; with little resulting gratitude.

The true level of Britain’s regard for the Commonwealth is disclosed in all its arrogance; citizenship of the Commonwealth countries with the longest link to the UK will become a positive disadvantage in visa application.  Israeli settlers living in Occupied Palestine on the West Bank, incidentally, will still be allowed to enter the UK without any visa at all, despite membership of neither Commonwealth nor EU.  Paradoxical, isn’t it?

The measure shows the arrogant British disdain for these countries – of which India pre-eminently but also Ghana are fast growing and important trading partners.  Undoubtedly Ghana will retaliate with measures which hurt British businesses; many of my good friends are senior Ghanaian politicians, and they are all furious.  The rhetoric the British employ about transformation from colonial status to a modern partnership of equals is exposed for the tissue of lies it has always been.  This is a straightforward racist measure, aimed at securing the racist vote to the Tories.

Not does it make any sense.  If you are intending to enter the UK under false pretences, and have the intent illegally to settle and start a new life there, then £3,000 is scarcely a deterrent given the substantial economic gains you intend to make over the long period you intend to stay.  It will rather seem a good investment; people will find the money.  The people it will deter are those who never intended to overstay.  The extra cash upfront,  to the businessman for a business trip, for the student coming to study, for the tourist will drive them to go elsewhere, to the UK’s net loss.

More cruelly it will deter decent middle class people from coming to see grandchildren in the holidays, from going to the niece’s wedding,  from going to graduation.  Those things will become the prerogative of the wealthy, those with plenty of cash to spare.

This does nothing to deter illegal immigration.  It merely demonstrates populist racism, demonstrates contempt for some of the UK’s best-disposed friends, and demonstrates that the government thinks the right to travel is only for the rich.  It is contemptible.


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932 thoughts on “Pandering to Racism

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  • Arbed

    Ben Franklin, 3.24pm

    Yes, it’s probably due to some competitiveness between lesser and greater power pacts within Ecuador. It was feared Assange was pulling Ecuador’s strings, or would be perceived as such.

    Typical infighting to secure the best possible path for the ambitious.

    Not sure it does represent infighting on this occasion. Of course, we only have partial quotes, due to the agenda of the media outlets (Univision/Wall Street Journal) making them public. Given that the most damaging quote – “from the outside […] it looks like Assange is running the show” (owtte) – is from the Ecuadorian Ambassador to the US, it is possible to read it simply as input from the appropriate diplomat on the public relations aspect from her perspective?

    Oh-oh, news flash:

    Putin: Snowden can stay in Russia if he stops damaging USA
    http://rt.com/news/putin-snowden-asylum-extradite-489/

    Anyone care to translate what the hell that means?

  • Arbed

    Ben at 4.39pm

    I think the Guardian/Observer pulling that story is sheer embarrassment because Wayne Madsen is known for his very conspiratorial views, and hence not really a very credible source.

  • Arbed

    Follow on from my comment at 4.43pm:

    What I’m referring to is the not-so-subtle hints about spy swaps in that article. Or perhaps it’s just a feint, because Putin must know that Snowden had already securely distributed all he’s got to journalistic organisations prior to travel from Hong Kong. I’m not sure it’s really up to Snowden any more how much damage will be done to the US. Sunshine is coming, like it or no 🙂

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Arbed; That was a strange things for Putin to say. I don’t know what to make of it because he’s never revealed anything but antipathy for the US. However his comments on human rights made me remember a comment by someone called ‘Cog’ a couple pages back.

    “Thanks for Big Brother’s take in the LAT, BF, very instructive. Domestic US propaganda consistently tries to twist Snowden’s case into a bilateral foreign policy issue. The US government needs foreign devils and enemies within. But Snowden’s case has started the wheels of an international process that the US is desperate to derail.

    Russia has consistently maintained that action wrt Snowden should be under the purview of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This opens the door for Snowden to get laissez-passer under the 1951 refugee convention, and Snowden’s got a good case as a person in fear of persecution and torture for his opinions. Non-refoulement protects Snowden from being returned to a state known to torture rights defenders, e.g Bradley Manning. Espionage charges are classic persecution tactics used by police states fighting for impunity.

    As a rights defender (acting to promote freedom-of-information and privacy rights of the ICCPR and UDHR,) Snowden is in the remit of the special rapporteur on rights defenders, and subject to corresponding protective initiatives of the EU, the OAS, and international NGOs, incl.:

    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/SRHRDefenders/Pages/CommentarytotheDeclarationonHumanRightsDefenders.aspx

    http://www.ohchr.org/en/Issues/SRHRDefenders/Pages/SRHRDefendersIndex.aspx

    http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Defenders/CommentarytoDeclarationondefendersJuly2011.pdf

    The established principle is, a state cannot prosecute a person for defending human rights. Viewing Snowden as a rights defender short-circuits all the HERO! TRAITOR! HERO!! TRAITOR!! nonsense. The point is not Snowden’s virtues or US interests, but the importance of defending the human rights of privacy and freedom of information”

    Why has no one thought of involving the UN?

  • Dreoilin

    “Anyone care to translate what the hell that means?”

    Yikes …
    Obama/Putin deal: Snowden can stay in Russia and USA will stop chasing him, on condition that he releases no more info?

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Spy swaps..why didn’t I think of that. Snowden is screwed because Obama said he’s DEFINITELY not going to play that game.

  • Flaming June

    I watched a Westminster Hall debate on TV the other day. Tony Baldry was asking for the lifting of some of EU directive regulations on bat conservation due to the damage they cause to church buildings and fabric with their droppings and urine. He is a second estates church commissioner.
    ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Commissioners. )

    I am very fond of the little creatures and actually have some pipistrelles who live under the tile hanging at the front of my house. At dusk they come out and whizz round. Fascinating.

    He went on and on reading from about six sheets of A4. When a young female MP intervened mentioning the Bat Conservation Trust, he became quite angry and shouted her down. She smiled as he resumed. The Hansard version here.
    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2013-06-25a.27.0&s=speaker%3A10023#g27.1

    I looked at his register. He receives £40,000 pa from Woburn Energy in oil exploration. He has links to a paper recycling company in Kazakhstan, is a barrister receiving fees of £88,000, has a shareholding in a Sierra Leone gold and diamond mining company, etc etc
    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tony_baldry/banbury#register

    The list is endless right back to 1999. – Donation in kind for a research assistant from a lighting industry association, a paid trip to India, a directorship of a company with interests in Iraq……
    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10023

    Doing well Tony. Hope the bats do too.

  • Kempe

    “YOU are talking about annual expenditure, details of which are on the link I kindly supplied. I am talking about expenditure, period. ”

    The two are becoming confused and compared one with another which I think you’ll agree is meaningless.

  • OldMark

    It appears (Komodo’s link @3.34 today) that the ‘bond scheme’ which precipitated Craig’s post was all hot air; just a headline grabbing ‘announcement’ presumably made to grab some votes back from UKIP.

    So, much of the comments thread is all a bit of a kabuki show.

  • fedup

    strange things for Putin to say. I don’t know what to make of it because he’s never revealed anything but antipathy for the US.

    You are not reading the Russians correctly. A more closer translation can be found in the Reuters headline (Harming ‘our American partners’)

    Putin repeated that Russia had no intention of handing the American over to the United States, which wants him on espionage charges.

    …..Russian intelligence agencies were not working with Snowden … “If he wants to go away somewhere and someone will accept him there, by all means,” Putin said.

    Putin is pissed off with Snowden holding court and letting the kittens out of bag, so to speak of. Further, Putin is at pains to disassociate his SIS from Snowden’s press conferances. This can be read in one of two ways;

    A – Snowden’s data is less valuable if it is in public domain for the Russians to benefit from.

    B – Snowden’s credibility quotient is enhanced and the US efforts in pinning the Russian agent stories are head off at the pass.

    There are other alternative interpretations, that could also could prove to be valid.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Conflict

    Hello Dreoilin – Russia may well grant Edward Snowden political asylum. Kabanov, a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, a Kremlin advisory body, said he believes that Russia is on the list of 15 countries Edward has appealed to for protection. Some lateral thinking is required in this direction.

    I am aware Snowden provided beneficial, pragmatic information on the German wiretap.

    I remember the six officers who manned the KGB office in the East German district of Dresden, just 100 meters away from the local headquarters of the Stasi, the former East German secret police.

    America and Britain, both fervent and concentrating on the activities of East German agents ’emigrated’ to West Germany and tasked with gathering intelligence, nuclear, NATO or otherwise.

    I hope the astute here get this; Germany has now kicked back of course.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    “Some Russians say Putin should grant Snowden asylum, but his remarks suggested the former Soviet KGB officer has little sympathy with the actions of the 30-year-old American who leaked details of secret U.S. government surveillance programmes.”

    Maybe some embarrassing disclosures reach Putin’s level. I never suspected for a minute someone who made a lifetime career of surveillance, would champion a leaker.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Mark; Do you have an opinion on why the UN has not been involved? Their Human Rights Charter(above) surely has some relevance.

  • fedup

    people who can afford to holiday in Europe, what have you to say for those who do not have the wherewithal to make the journey?

    Although patently here is an attempt to make the whole of the discussion look silly (tree hugging, meths drinking! hippies and their sentimental claptrap don’t work). However, referring to the link kindly provided by Komodo, there is a budget of foreign military aid for the amount of three thousands and 200 million pounds which can be earmarked for Medical aid (just think how many people would suffer less with that amount of medicine and medical care).

    Funny how Cuba with its little economy can restore the sight of two plain loads of poor people every week landing in Havana airport and taken to Havana hospitals. Or export Surgeons, Doctors, Nurses, and medicine to poorer nations, whilst our political leadership is the first to export weapons into the hands of “rebels” in the countries that they don’t like which are mostly in the category of; could be rich countries, but have to be kept poor, because the sponsors of the politicians are coveting their ass, and oil, and shit.

  • Flaming June

    Snowden ‘seeks asylum in Russia’

    According to the BBC Breaking news

  • BrianFujisan

    well said Mr Assange

    And Bravo Ecuador too

    The U.S. government also revoked Snowden’s passport, which Assange called a “disgraceful” action.”By cancelling his passport, [the U.S.] has left [Snowden] for the moment marooned in Russia,” he said. “I think that every citizen has the right to their citizenship, to take someone’s principle form of citizenship their passport, is a disgrace.” “He is a hero,” Assange said of Snowden. “He has told the people of the world and the United States that there is mass unlawful interception of their communications.”

    http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/viewvideo/76526

  • Macky

    “Don’t think so, Macky”

    Thanks Komodo, both for spotting that (still in w/e recovery mode!) & for the upto date link; as I was predicting, this daft proposal will never see the light of day, much to the disappointment of some here.

  • fedup

    Syrians have captured a Turkish intelligence officer, who was assigned to Syrian Free Brigade and has been busy bombing, rocketing and plundering his way through Halab in Syria. His exploits have included: dismantling of factory and plants in Halab and smuggling these to Turkey, as well as providing intelligence and advice (ie how to blow up, etc) for the Syrian Free Brigade. This chap is identified as Haia’ny a Turkish Intelligence Officer and after his capture and interrogation, there seems to be plenty of dirt that is to be washed in the Public in the coming days.

    It is getting more and more difficult for the Yanks to keep the lid on their dirty ops and seems glasnost is getting rammed up their butts, which evidently they don’t like it up them!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    I fear that the sharp popping noise some of the more aware commenters may have heard around 16h00 today was Komodo blowing another fuse. He must be careful, as his house might soon be without power. His arguments of course already are.

    And now to the substance of his pop. Leaving aside his bluster and invective, I merely point to two of his comments:

    1/.”YOU are talking about annual expenditure,..”

    Yes, indeed. As is everyone else, I believe. When people write “annual expenditure”, one must assume that they are talking about annual expenditure.

    But not Komodo, it would appear: HE is now, suddenly*, “talking about expenditure, period” – whatever that may mean. I do hope Komodo is not building up to a comparison of one year’s worth of social expenditure with several years’ worth of spending on defence, for that would be….how can I say this kindly?…silly.
    ______

    2/.”Re. arguments, as you seem to be under some compulsion to have an argument on trivial points..”

    If facts and figures are trivial, then I plead guilty as charged 🙂
    _______

    * curiously enough, Komodo also refers to annual figures in his earlier post at 10h37…
    _______

    Conclusion : commenters should draw on their strengths and not weaknesses. I therefore suggest that Komodo, who is strong on speculation but weak on facts, should henceforth focus on the fascinating discussion on what Ecuador, Russia and the US might – or might not- be doing wrt Edward Snowden. Lots of material there for him to dispaly his unequalled talents 🙂

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    To return to the question of the £3000 bond/over-stayers.

    It may well be the case that the govt is reviewing its proposal, or at least thinking of not applying it to visitors from India.

    If the latter is true, then surely this would be yet another example of the govt shamefully abandoning what is right and giving in to commercial pressures.

    As such alleged behaviour by the govt in other areas has been roundly condemned by various Eminences on this blog in the past, I trust that the said Eminences will join me in urging the govt to stand fast.

    Ho hum…

  • Mark Golding - Children of Conflict

    “Earlier this month, the WikiLeaks founder, who had a television show on the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda channel Russia Today, said he had advised Snowden to seek asylum there.

    Fuck off Rusbridger, reporting truth conveys care and duty, not omission, opinion and conjecture for gain; that albatross may exist at grass-roots journalism but dissipates at managers level, falling foul of their own personal bias and onward, succumbing to commercial or political pressure at the editor-in-chief’s desk.

    RT rules OK!

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/01/putin-snowden-remain-russia-offer

  • John Goss

    Ben Franklin, it’s right. No country on the planet needs more education in human rights than the USA. From my point of view they could send educators from Ecuador to demonstrate to the US senate and house of representatives what they should be teaching in schools, instead of teaching them to wrap themselves in the stars and stripes, to sing “God Bless America” and the “Star Spangled banner” and the President, to quote Animal Farm, is always right.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    But John $32 million dollars is like ten pennies for each of us. We could make fortune cookies with the Bill of Rights inside.

    Seriously, I thought the spin on the facts was a symbolic triumph.

  • John Goss

    Sorry Ben Franklin I was reading a comment of yours on the previous page about Ecaudor offering 21 billion dollars annually to educate the US in human rights.

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