Here is my review of this important and timely book.
A few weeks ago, a comment on twitter made me choke on my
coffee. This was the suggestion from the Home Office that ‘activist lawyers’
were frustrating the removal of unwanted visitors. I have been a lawyer for
many years but knew little about what immigration lawyers do. As it was, this
timely book then appeared on our shelves. Colin Yeo is an undisputed expert in
the field having worked as an immigration barrister for many years.
The first thing that I learned was that such lawyers must be
extremely active just to keep up with the sheer volume of laws, regulations and
procedures. Colin Yeo points out that we have Acts of Parliament from 1971,
1988, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016 and counting.
Then there are the regulations and other orders – 66 between 2015 – 2017. There
is little publicly funded support to enable confused visitors to negotiate this
complex maze.
He does not paint the picture of our island that we like to
imagine. ‘The image we hold in our minds of Britain as welcoming country is a
comforting mirage’. He then gives us pages of real-life stories that has even
the most steeled of jaws dropping. At one level we see a ridiculous refusal of
asylum because the applicant could not possibly face danger from guerrillas or
other primates! At a more obviously disturbing level is the story of the Down’s
Syndrome sufferer who was refused leave to remain on the grounds that his UK relatives
could send him money. This, like many such decisions, was overturned in the
face of negative publicity.
All of this is part of the campaign to reduce net migration
at all costs. We have all heard of the hostile environment that led amongst
other things to the Windrush scandal. 'The hostile environment has been a
disaster. The system encourages race discrimination, the financial costs...have
been huge, the wrong people have been catastrophically affected and there has
been no discernible decrease in unlawful immigration'
At times Welcome to Britain reads like a Franz Kafka novel.
Like the tragedy of Alois Dvorzak an 84 years old Canadian with Alzheimer’s who
was still in handcuffs when he ‘took his last breath’ in 2013.
I strongly urge everybody to get a copy of this book and do
nothing else until you have read it and grasped the seriousness of the message,
and what activist lawyers really do. It is well written, persuasive and
topical. Many of my friends will find this in their Christmas stocking this
year!
This is the link
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