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CounterPunch
September
25, 2002
God Save the
Village Green!
British Tests for Immigrants and Asylum Seekers
by WILLIAM MacDOUGALL
"We are freeing countries of different
religions and cultural backgrounds and making it possible for
them to get back home and rebuild their countries. I have no
sympathy whatsoever with young people in their 20s who do not
get back home and rebuild their country and their families."
British Home Secretary David
Blunkett, 18/09/02
Compulsory citizenship tests for immigrants have
taken a further towards becoming a reality with British Home
Secretary David Blunkett's announcement of the creation of an
advisory group headed up by Sir Bernard Crick - emeritus professor
of politics at Birkbeck College London - which will set "life
in the United Kingdom" naturalisation exams. The group will
also advise on the "method, conduct and implementation"
of the "life in the United Kingdom" test and submit
suggestions as to how best promote language skills and practical
knowledge about Britain.
Explaining the rationale behind the setting
up of the advisory group, Blunkett said:
"We want British citizenship to
embrace positively the diversity of background, culture and faiths
that living in modern Britain involves. The Government is also
concerned that those who become British citizens should play
an active role, both economic and political, in our society,
and have a sense of belonging to a wider community."
The group--which consists of a number
of government appointed experts in citizenship, integration and
education--will also design the content of the so-called citizenship
courses (to include British politics and culture and an exam
on British life) and accompanying ceremony which will include
the swearing of a formal oath of allegiance to the Queen and
a pledge to uphold democratic values and respect for human rights.
The first citizenship ceremonies are slated for September 2003.
The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum
Bill will also require all citizenship applicants resident in
Britain for at least three years to demonstrate a certain standard
of English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic (yes, you read right).
Sheffield's most prominent entitlement
cards for all advocate--more of which later - claims that
these moves are in recognition of the significance of being awarded
British citizenship ("The government intends to make gaining
British citizenship meaningful and celebratory rather than simply
a bureaucratic process") and not a retreat to the dubious
thinking which informed Conservative peer Norman Tebbit's notorious
"Cricket Test". Disputing criticisms that his culture
exams are but a pale re-tread of Tebbit's Law (Tebbit famously
claimed that immigrants from the commonwealth only considered
themselves British when there wasn't an international cricket
test series to be contested), Blunkett defends his latest citizenship
gambit, claiming that "it has to do with an understanding
of the society, of the world that you are coming to."
The watchwords of this initiative then
are "inclusion", "community" and--especially
popular with the policy wonks this one--"social cohesion".
It goes without saying that critics of the plan have failed to
embrace the generosity of spirit which informs the heart of Blunkett's
new inclusive message.
Angry missives to the letters pages of
the ostensibly liberal press have been scribbled posthaste in
an attempt to derail what more cynical minds might call the Home
Secretary's "fish and chips test". One angry Guardian
reader cruelly dismisses the beleagured Home Secretary's plans,
preferring instead to put a metaphorical stick in the spokes
of the advisory group before it has even begun its work proper
(12/09/02):
"As a Brit who has lived abroad
for years, I would fail David Blunkett's "life in the UK
test" (Blunkett establishes advisory group, September 10).
And I won't swear allegiance to the Queen. The pledge to uphold
democracy and human rights sounds OK. That's the bit Blunkett
would fail."
Whatever the rights or wrongs of this
spirited republican's refusal to swear allegiance to the Queen,
the writer shows some prescience in predicting that Blunkett
would fail to uphold democracy and human rights. The fact of
the matter is that he already has failed. On September 11, a
high court judge ruled that Blunkett--whose modus operandi as
Home Office Secretary seems to be to directed towards outdoing
the the number of gaffes of his accident prone predecessor--acted
unlawfully by deporting an Afghan family who had took refuge
in a West Midlands mosque to Germany.
Ignoring medical reports that removal
of the mother and her children would result in a deterioration
of their mental health, Blunkett argued that the family's human
rights claims were "manifestly unfounded". West Midlands
police used a battering ram to take the parents from the mosque
in July. The judge ruled that the medical evidence "emphasises
the care that is required in this type of case to ensure that
the secretary of state makes any decision based on a sound basis
of fact".
Despite finding in the family's favour
("As a result of an unlawful act, this family have been
removed from this country when they should not have been"),
the high court ruled on September 12 that they would not be allowed
back into Britain to appeal against the deportation. Instead,
Blunkett brokered a compromise with the court which means the
hearing will now be conducted via videolink. The government--very
graciously--will foot the bill to send lawyers and medical experts
to Germany (doubtless, Blunkett has not yet been made aware of
the plethora of budget airline flight deals currently on offer
between Germany to England). Of course, Blunkett is only honouring
a recent tradition of hapless British Home Secretaries who cannot
be considered to have broken their ministerial duck until they
have been reprimanded by the courts.
In his initial rebuke of the secretary
of state, the judge claimed that a Home Office letter issued
on August 13 refusing the family an injunction to appeal against
their removal contained significant discrepancies between the
immigration status and rights of residence they would receive
on removal to Germany. Assurances that they would not be housed
in a reception centre and that they would receive full settled
rights in Germany also proved false.
On arriving in Germany, the family were
put in a reception centre before being moved to a refugee camp.
Moreover, the family had not been accorded "settled status";
meaning that the father could not work and that they had access
to only the minimum level of German social security and medical
benefits. Say what you will about the sitting member for Sheffield
Brightside - you cannot deny that he takes his responsibility
as keeper of the flame of Home office blunders seriously.
The illegally deported family's QC has
claimed that preventing their return to Britain perpetuates the
injustice of their removal and that a videolink would be "contrary
to an effective appeal". Qualifying his decision to conduct
the appeal by video, Mr Justice Baker said, "I'm satisfied
that with the safeguards that have been offered by the secretary
of state, it is not necessary to direct the return of this family
to this country for the hearing before the adjudicator."
In the unlikely event of the unfortunate family's appeal being
successful, they could do worse than beginning to brush up on
their "British Life Skills" - a few old episodes of
Coronation Street and Eastenders might just do the trick.
Despite all the lofty talk of "community
cohesion" and "social cohesion" being bandied
about and claims that the kites first flown in the Secure
Borders, Safe Haven White Paper are an attempt at addressing
the underlying cultural problems which sparked by last year's
riots in the north of England, the real message underpinning
the proposed measures is a warning to other asylum seekers that
Britain is not an easy option. The Home Office is, naturally,
disappointed by the temerity of the judge's decision:
"It is the home secretary's view
that this will create such a precedent that every illegal immigrant
and failed asylum seeker will cite psychological damages to frustrate
the proper operation of asylum laws."
Finally, we get to the heart of the matter
(and it has nothing to do with David Beckham, Eastenders or the
Spice Girls). A raft of asylum and immigration legislation and
measures make clear in no uncertain terms that the government's
policy is one designed to further restrict the flow of asylum
seekers into Britain. A number of employment legislation sops
have already been made to the French in the form of amendments
to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill. Displaying a
talent for pulling numbers out of thin air in much the same way
that magicians pulls rabbits out of hats, Blunkett set a figure
of 30,000 failed asylum seekers to be removed annually.
This has subsequently been revised, as
Blunkett conceded to the Commons home affairs select committee
this week that ""It was not achievable in terms of
any other country in the world or in terms of our current processing
ability at that time." The latest in a long line of very
public climbdowns has regrettably failed to temper his rhetoric
or his legislative zeal. A consultation paper on identity cards
- whose primary aim is the detection of illegal immigrants--has
also been issued. The children of asylum seekers will be forced
to receive their schooling in the new accommodation centres being
built to house asylum seekers while they wait for their applications
to be processed. This of course has nothing to do with the number
of successsful high profile campaigns to overturn the removal
orders of families with children who became fully integrated
into their host communities. Children in mainstream education
might pass the Great British fish and chips test--those living
in accommodation centres can forget it.
The Employment concession which allowed
asylum seekers to apply for permission to work after six months
of the date of their asylum application where they have not received
an initial decision within that period was revoked with immediate
effect on 23 July 2002. Defending the measure, the government
claimed that the provision was no longer relevant as most initial
asylum decisions are made within six months. Anyway, the employment
concession acted as a "pull-factor" to other would-be
asylum seekers. The Refugee Council has criticised this development
as a retrograde step; pointing out that the current average waiting
time for an initial asylum decision is in fact 13 months (and
a further 26 weeks for appeal).
Moreover, they argue that the decision
to scrap the right-to-work rule was taken in order to quell French
concerns about the lack of British work and residence controls.
The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will also give the
government the power to remove the "cash only" option
which currently allows asylum seekers to apply for subsistence
only support from the National Asylum Support Service. Despite
assurances from Westminster that such a step would only be taken
once accomodation centres - designed to replace the current dispersal
system - have been successfully piloted, a leaked Downing Street
memo shows that the government is still considering removing
the "cash only" option this Autumn.
The "Entitlement Cards and Identity
Fraud" Consultation Paper presented to parliament in July
2002 makes clear that - for all of Blunkett's inclusionist posturing
-the government's real position on immigration and asylum is
an entirely prohibitive one. For "entitlement" read
"compulsory". As the Executive Summary spells out in
no uncertain terms, "By giving a clear indication that the
holder of an entitlement card is lawfully resident in the UK,
a card scheme could be a powerful weapon in combating illegal
immigration. The perception that once people manage to enter
the country illegally they can work and obtain benefits and public
services with impunity adds to the 'pull factor' which draws
people into organised networks of people trafficking."
This flies in the face of Home Office
conducted research (Home Office Research Study 243 - Understanding
the decision-making of asylum seekers, July 2002) based on
interviews with asylum seekers which comprehensively explodes
the myth that Britain is perceived by asylum seekers as being
a "soft touch":
"There was very little evidence
that the sample respondents had a detailed knowledge of: UK immigration
or asylum procedures; entitlements to benefits in the UK; or
the availability of work in the UK. There was even less evidence
that the respondents had a comparative knowledge of how these
phenomena varied between different European countries. Most of
the respondents wished to work and support themselves during
the determination of their asylum claim rather than be dependent
on the state."
The truth of the matter is that the only
people who still perceive Britain as a "soft-touch"
for asylum seekers are the thousands of Britons grown complacent
on a diet of stale Daily Mail editorials which employ militaristic
discourses of "invasion" to invoke images of a green
and pleasant land beset by hordes of marauding gypsies, tinkers
and con artists.
Asylum headlines of the last few years
read like nothing more than a "Beginner's Guide to Folk
Demons": "Refugees are flooding into UK 'like ants",
Daily Express, 07/11/01; "Britain is top asylum haven",
Daily Mail, 02/02/02; "Bogus refugees treated better than
UK citizens", The Sun, 18/02/02; "Our town's too nice
for refugees they will try to escape, rapists and thieves will
terrorise us", Daily Express, 23/03/02.
A report published in February by the
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia ("Racism
and Cultural Diversity in the Mass Media") concludes that:
"To a certain extent, it appears
that immigrants and asylum-seekers now receive the same type
of stigmatising coverage, which 'Black' and 'Asian' minorities
received fifteen years ago. This suggests that the criteria for
newspapers to include groups within their vision of the British
community has changed over time and is now applied on the basis
of citizenship, so that British minorities are no longer an 'outgroup'
but to a certain extent are included in the 'we' who are defined
in opposition to 'them' the foreigners. This highlights that
despite a relative level of autonomy, the media agenda in the
long term very much follows the political agenda in its evaluation
of 'race' and immigration."
49% of people interviewed for a Mail
on Sunday (2001) poll conducted by MORI "strongly agreed"
that "refugees come to Britain because they see Britain
as a soft touch." 59% agreed with the statement that "a
very large number of those seeking asylum are cheats." The
truth of the matter is that asylum seekers are more likely to
be the victims of crime and violence than all of the Concerneds
of Colchester and Worrieds of Worcester the combined
might of the tabloids can conjure up. A report published by the
Association of Chief Police Officers confirms that there is no
evidence of a higher rate of criminality among refugees and asylum
seekers.
Which is surprising - given the numbers
of violent crimes suffered by asylum seekers who are all too
often housed in already marginalised and disenfranchised communities
the length of Britain as part of local council refugee/asylum
dispersal programmes. The sort of communities where disenchantment
and "bogus refugees treated better than UK citizens"
type scare stories (The Sun, 18/02/02) have helped put resentment
of asylum seekers at an all-time high. Ill-considered--but beautifully
timed!--comments from Foot-in-Mouth specialist Blunkett and Lord
Rooker, Minister for Citizenship and Immigration ("most
asylum seekers are single men who have deserted their families
for economic gain"), probably help too.
Unperturbed by the charges of insensitivity
laid at his door, Blunkett has sparked further criticism by claiming
- in an essay published by the Foreign Policy Centre entitled
"Integration with Diversity: Globalisation and the Renewal
of Democracy and Civil Society" that speaking English
at home "helps overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils
generational relationships. In as many as 30% of Asian British
households, according to the recent citizenship survey, English
is not spoken at home."
Ever mindful of being dragged into a
war of words with the English Asian communities who have still
not forgiven his comments on "sham" arranged marriages,
Blunkett qualifies this by saying:
"I have never said, or implied, that lack of fluency in
English was in any way directly responsible for the disturbances
in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in the summer of 2001. However,
speaking English enables parents to converse with their children
in English, as well as in their historic mother tongue, at home
and to participate in wider modern culture."
Even the most churlish critics of Blunkett
and New Labour would be hard pressed to find fault with the inherent
good sense in more immigrants to Britain being able to better
speak English. The "schizophrenia which bedevils generational
relationships" though? Blunkett's advisors obviously forgot
to tell him that one man's "schizophrenia" is another
man's "multiculturalism". Speaking on BBC Radio Four's
Today programme, the Home Secretary dismissed the row caused
by his comments as a "silly controversy". He obviously
did not feel chastened by Lord Ouseley's (former head of the
Commission for Racial Equality) condemnation of his chest beating
description of those jailed after the Bradford riots as "maniacswhining
about their sentences". Doubtless, Ouseley belongs to the
"woolly-thinking, liberal-minded brigade" who invariably
attempt to throw a spanner in the works of Blunkett's latest
project.
The rationale behind Blunkett's frequent
bouts of policy sabre-rattling might prove to be perhaps altogether
more prosaic. New Labour guru Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould--Tony
Blair's political strategist--warn of the dangers of failing
to be seen to be taking a strong stance on immigration in a magazine
analysis of recent centre-left political party defeats in Europe.
Writing in the Mandelson edited Progressive Politics, Gould
claims "it is not the comfortable middle classes who have
most to fear from migration, but those at the cutting edge of
vulnerability."
Mandelson's editorial concurs, adding
that "such communities are where left votes have traditionally
been concentrated and where the left has for too long relied
on fading class loyalties to deliver the vote. Progressives cannot
overlook the fears that are associated with this pressure. We
need to think through where we stand on migration, and how we
manage it, in the world of globalisation, and in the context
of Western Europes ageing population."
Only last week, another prominent Christian
Democratic political party leader tried to drum up support on
a "less immigration, more integration" electoral ticket.
The difference is that CDU leader Edmund Stoiber's plans were
the last desperate actions of a man trying to avert German federal
elections defeat. The concept of enforced assimilation into any
culture is not only unpalatable but based in questionable assumptions
of common cultural national identity.
Blunkett's laughable citizenship test
should be seen for what it really is--a smokescreen which allows
the further tightening of already strict immigration and asylum
legislation administered by an out of touch Home Secretary who
chooses to hide behind a bluff façade of insults and catcalling.
It is also the act of a government in no hurry to relinquish
power for the sake of a few Sri Lankans and Somalis.
It is no mean irony that the majority
of asylum seekers questioned for the "Understanding the
decision-making of asylum seekers" Home Office report cited
Britain's reputation as a tolerant democracy that was sympathetic
to asylum seekers as being instrumental in their decision to
come to the UK.
One optimistic Iranian respondent even
went as far as to say, "I feel that England today is encouraging
people to come in I mean the government, the Labour government
they want the people to come in."
Mr Blunkett must surely hope to have
disabused him of that particular fantasy. Speaking to the Commons
home affairs select committee on Wednesday 18 September, Blunkett
turned in a bravura display which might even have made George
Bush Junior blanch:
"If these people are dynamic and
well-qualified, and I don't dispute that they are, they should
get back home and recreate their countries that we freed from
tyranny, whether it be Kosovo or now Afghanistan.
We are freeing countries of different
religions and cultural backgrounds and making it possible for
them to get back home and rebuild their countries. I have no
sympathy whatsoever with young people in their 20s who do not
get back home and rebuild their country and their families."
Perhaps the minister for common sense
should instigate the liberation of a few more countries from
tyranny - there would be no need for citizenship tests and asylum
reforms full stop. It really is as easy as A, B, C.
William McDougal
can be reached at: wmacdougall@msn.com
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