The same old tune.
This government, for some truly bizarre and strange reason, is in love with contracts. Maybe it's because rather than seeing themselves as politicians, they like to believe that they're in fact managers, albeit managers who haven't got the slightest clue on how to handle the workers, except from handing down opinions and pieces of paper which set out in minute detail exactly what they must do in order to earn their pay at the end of the week/month.It's impossible to tell where this obsession began, but it might have been purloined from schools whom, at the beginning of the year, make the kids sign a laughable contract on how they're meant to behave, respect each other, etc etc. It's signed, then it goes out the metaphorical window within ten minutes. This though gives the control freaks of New Labour, who adore to micro-manage down to the very last detail, the feeling of having huge power while actually having none whatsoever. It's self-aggrandisement that would be harmless if it didn't seem so pernicious towards those who actually have to sign the patronising things in the first place. From schools the idea spread to those who are a few offences off getting an ASBO, that other marvellous New Labour achievement. They and their parents have to promise to obey the laws that they should have been in the first place. Supposedly these have been something of a success: perhaps because it involves the parents and doesn't just affect the children solely. One of Blair's last great big ideas was that these contracts could be extended even further; meaning if you wanted a hip replacement you might have to sign a contract that mean you'd promise to keep your weight down. It was one of the most revoltingly authoritarian, condescending and revealing policies Blair had ever suggested. Being a good citizen, paying taxes and doing everything else wasn't enough for this government; they wanted more.
That plan hasn't been entirely abandoned under Brown, as the idea of the rights and responsibilities of the ordinary citizen as outlined by Jack Straw of late underlines. Perhaps the real forebear of such a scheme though is to be introduced for those unfortunate enough to want to become a British citizen, as unveiled today. Like with ID cards, shortly to become compulsory for foreign nationals, it seems the immigrants and newcomers are to be treated as unwilling guinea pigs for what the rest of us must also soon have to suffer. The Tories tried their most unpopular policies first - including the poll tax - out on a recalcitrant Scotland where they had nothing to lose. The closest thing Labour has now is the downtrodden and most vilified in society, who currently are either binge drinking teenagers, which tend to already be citizens, or migrants. They've plumped for the latter.
Today's proposal is somewhat based on a Fabian pamphlet from last year written by Liam Byrne and the then communities minister, Ruth Kelly. That proposed a separate points scheme for those wishing to become citizens, to run alongside the one for those who want to come here in the first place. In order to accrue the amount needed to become a citizen, they'd have to do most of what has been set out today, but would have had points deducted for committing minor offences. Today's scheme is instead based around the idea of a "probationary" period, which you have to love simply for its shameless nod to the idea of criminality, not to mention how you need to prove that you are actually here for your own well-being and not merely milking the country for all it's worth.
That frankly is the main rub. While none of the rhetoric from ministers today has approached the disgraceful sop to the tabloids John Reid made while Home Secretary, shouting wildly about migrants "stealing our benefits", you can't help but notice but it's almost certainly been designed with their demands in full mind. Liam Byrne, writing a piss-poor article for CiF, says that we're not a nation of Alf Garnetts, based on his consultations which are published in the green paper, but the leader writers and columnists on some newspapers are close to a modern-day equivalent. How else to explain the cranking up of the visa fees, which are to go directly to a "transitional impact" scheme to provide additional funds to local councils which have had an influx of migrants who are stretching their spending? As Diane Abbot has already said, this is asking the overwhelmingly black or Asian visa applicants to foot the bill for the east European migrants which the government failed to plan for. In any case, much of the moaning has been exaggerated, but this is what it leads to. Today's Sun leader:
Brits are more worried by the effects of record immigration than anything else.
Who says so? His private polling guru AND one of his most able ministers, Pat McFadden.
Hard-working Brits rightly deserve NHS treatment, schools for their kids and decent roads.
They’ve paid their taxes and expect public services in return.
Yet our swelling population means schools and hospitals can no longer cope.
Ignoring the straw man about somehow this argument being anything to do with race, I obviously can't account for hospitals across the land, but my grandmother's had a stay in one recently, and having made multiple visits to see her, the last thing I saw was the image of hospitals conjured up by the press coverage. It was clean, the staff were incredibly helpful and there was nothing to suggest that anyone was having any trouble coping, and I live in an area which has had a reasonably large influx of eastern European migrants. What I did notice however was that if the same tightened immigration rules had been in place when a decent number of those staff had came to live here, they might not have been able to make the same contribution as they subsequently have.
Byrne says that all those he spoke to didn't want those seeking citizenship to have to jump through endless hoops to gain it, but that seems exactly what the proposal he now presumably supports is designed to put in place. The time it takes will now be 6 years, rather than 5; there'll be more rigorous testing of the command of English, just as the government has cut the funding for the English as second language schemes that are vital for those who need those qualifications; and applicants will need to "prove" that they've made an attempt to integrate, with those who undertake voluntary work within the community having their applications potentially accelerated.
Most of the proposals aren't intrinsically questionable, but I think the biggest problem with it is the very fact that it's no longer enough for you to pay taxes, to not break the law and to generally keep yourself to yourself; if you weren't born here, you have to prove that you've not come only to sponge off the state and take advantage of our wonderfully free, fair, tolerant, diverse and shining happy country. It's surely not churlish to point out that if poor migrants in search of a better life have to go through such bureaucracy to prove their good intentions, that the non-doms which the government is so obsequious towards also do exactly the same, paying their fair share of tax at the very least. The corporations and businesses which do everything they can to pay as little tax as possible, whether through loopholes, tax havens or offshore trusts ought to placed under the same "rights and responsibilities".
Fact is, the government is as usual stuck between a rock and a hard place. It will never do enough to placate those who want the door shut completely; they'll instead gravitate towards the Tories' disingenuous call for a mythical annual limit or even further to the right. These proposals don't even touch the eastern Europeans who have moved in such large numbers since their countries joined the EU, even if the tide does now appear to be turning on that score. It will also naturally offend those who object to the apparent establishment of there being a two-tier citizenship programme. If you're already well off and white, you'll be welcomed with open arms; non-white and/or poor and you're suspicious. That it so apparently pleases Frank Field, who long lost any touch with the party he's meant to be a member of is perhaps its biggest indictment.
Labels: citizenship, contracts, control freakery, draconian crackdowns, Home Office, immigration, Liam Byrne, politics
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