--oo00oo--
And a reader raises an important issue:-
Unintended Consequences
Dear Jim,
Yesterday, the UK government immigration policy sent a chill through my marrow, yet it is a logical consequence of Brexit and "taking back control of our borders". Now we are waking up to what Brexit will look like in 2021. What I want to discuss is what is one of the unintended consequences of this paradigm policy shift.
The public were horrified when 39 Vietnamese migrants died in a lorry last October. We in the probation service are only too aware of the harm caused by the well-established trade in the trafficking of people from Vietnam into this country. I have written plenty of PSRs on illegal cannabis farms that used trafficked labour and have supervised manager of a nail parlour. But yet many women in this country would not think twice of using these parlours in their local high streets due to their competitive prices, turning a blind eye to the possibility they are being served by a victim of modern slavery. Similarly many cannabis users don't think about the provenance of their BUD joints or don't care. Collectively we continue to feed illegal trafficking.
From 2021, traffickers will be gearing up to expand to meet the upsurge in demand for "low-skilled" labour in the hospitality, wharehouse and social care sector when the new immigration policy kicks in. It will be a bonanza.
So in the above scenario "taking back control of our borders" will have the perverse effect of causing an increase in illegal people trafficking to meet the upturn in demand from businesses, industry and agriculture. No doubt Messers Cummings and his band of merry forecasters are planning measures to minimise this scenario. I just pray that these measures will not turn this country even more of a centrally controlled police state like China where freedom is just a disposable commodity.
Yours,
Unintended Consequences
Dear Jim,
Yesterday, the UK government immigration policy sent a chill through my marrow, yet it is a logical consequence of Brexit and "taking back control of our borders". Now we are waking up to what Brexit will look like in 2021. What I want to discuss is what is one of the unintended consequences of this paradigm policy shift.
The public were horrified when 39 Vietnamese migrants died in a lorry last October. We in the probation service are only too aware of the harm caused by the well-established trade in the trafficking of people from Vietnam into this country. I have written plenty of PSRs on illegal cannabis farms that used trafficked labour and have supervised manager of a nail parlour. But yet many women in this country would not think twice of using these parlours in their local high streets due to their competitive prices, turning a blind eye to the possibility they are being served by a victim of modern slavery. Similarly many cannabis users don't think about the provenance of their BUD joints or don't care. Collectively we continue to feed illegal trafficking.
From 2021, traffickers will be gearing up to expand to meet the upsurge in demand for "low-skilled" labour in the hospitality, wharehouse and social care sector when the new immigration policy kicks in. It will be a bonanza.
So in the above scenario "taking back control of our borders" will have the perverse effect of causing an increase in illegal people trafficking to meet the upturn in demand from businesses, industry and agriculture. No doubt Messers Cummings and his band of merry forecasters are planning measures to minimise this scenario. I just pray that these measures will not turn this country even more of a centrally controlled police state like China where freedom is just a disposable commodity.
Yours,
But why are we so worried? Priti Aunty has got us our blue passports back. Hurrah!!
ReplyDeleteThe first blue British passports for nearly 30 years will be issued next month, the Home Office has said.
The current burgundy design is being replaced, following the UK's departure from the European Union.
Blue passports were introduced in 1921 and phased out after 1988 when members of the then European Economic Community agreed to harmonise designs.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said the passport will "once again be entwined with our national identity".
She said Brexit had given the UK "a unique opportunity to... forge a new path in the world" and enabled a return to "the iconic blue and gold design".
*** The UK was never formally compelled to change the colour of its passport in the 1980s but did so with other member states ***
Parallels with Fascism? Blue passports were introduced in 1921. Also in 1921:
DeleteThe National Fascist Party was an Italian political party created by Benito Mussolini. Founded in 1921 it declared that the party was to serve as "a revolutionary militia placed at the service of the nation."
See also "The Brexit revolutionaries - How Leave.EU, a self-styled guerrilla movement, infiltrated the Conservative Party and became the dominant digital powerhouse in British politics."
" On 18 November 2015, Leave.EU was officially launched by the group’s co-founder, businessman Richard Tice, alongside [Aaron] Banks, Brittany Kaiser from the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, and Leave.EU’s CEO Liz Bilney...
Preparations for Leave.EU had begun long before its launch. Bilney was already laying the foundations in January 2015, when she flew to Milan to meet the team in charge of digital operations for the Five Star Movement, Italy’s web-based populist party, which is now in power [also known as the 'New Right']. Bilney was accompanied by then-Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
According to Bilney, the meeting shaped Leave.EU’s whole strategy. The key to Five Star’s success was amassing a large online audience and keeping it continually engaged with the party’s digital output, making followers feel as if they were participating in a movement."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/10/brexit-revolutionaries
It's been announced this week that Serco have been awarded a contract worth £200m to operate another two immigration removal centres in the UK.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, those that are likely to populate those centres are not those that profit from people trafficking, but many of those that are victims of trafficking.
The Windrush scandal made big headlines and drew huge media attention, but the truth is the UK has been operating a pretty dirty immigration process for some years now, and some of the third sector have been complicit in giving effect to those policies.
St Mungo's, a homeless charity have until recently denied sharing information about the people they're involved with, but the truth outs in the end, and now they must take responsibility for effecting the removal of probably thousands of non nationals in exchange for funding.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/openjustice/unlawful-state/i-didnt-know-i-could-be-illegal-the-policies-that-target-rough-sleepers/
'Getafix
we all have our price, getafix
Deletehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/21/internal-whitehall-shakeup-discussions-could-see-ministry-justice/amp/
ReplyDeleteAs predicted on here:
DeleteA Whitehall shake-up could see the Ministry of Justice scrapped and some of its powers moved to the Home Office, the Daily Telegraph understands
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, is expected to be given responsibility for sentencing in the Ministry of Justice, a government source told the Telegraph.
The move would be seen as a first step in a Whitehall shake-up to take sentencing and possibly probation out of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) altogether and given to the Home Office.
Mr Malthouse was described as a “lynchpin” of the plans by a source close to the discussions. “The long term aim is to merge the Home Office with elements of the MoJ.”
paywall
Internal discussions have taken place about replacing the MoJ with a “constitutional affairs” ministry, which would have responsibilities including judicial reform and plans for a British Bill of Rights to replace the European Convention on Human Rights.
DeleteA wider restructuring of Whitehall is increasingly expected to take place in the first half of next year, sources said this week. Meanwhile Tory MPs increasingly expect another reshuffle at the start of 2021.
Meanwhile plans for an expected merger of the £14billion international aid department into the Foreign Office are already underway.
Ministers including James Cleverly, Lord Goldsmith, Baroness Sugg and Nigel Adams have been given roles in both departments with officials expected to "shuffle" between the two. Number 10 has previously played down reports of mergers between the Foreign Office and DfID.
During last week’s reshuffle, Mr Malthouse and Chris Philp were appointed ministers in both the Home Office and the MoJ.
The Home Office has since discussed freeing up Mr Malthouse from some of his Home Office duties to be able to take on more of the brief in the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Philp, another Home Office minister, is expected to be made responsible for immigration, while also being a junior minister in Justice.
One of the Home Secretary’s advisers, Alex Wild, was also moved to the Ministry of Justice in what has been seen as another sign of building links between the two.
One source said that once ministers start covering both departments, merging should then become easy: “When the formal merger happens a lot of the officials will say - we’ve already been covering this”.
The plans for the Home Office and MoJ would effectively reverse the 2007 changes when some of the Home Secretary’s responsibility were combined with the Department for Constitutional Affairs to create the MoJ.