The prime minister’s key immigration speech says that he wants to make forced marriage a criminal offence, and makes it clear that Downing Street backs Theresa May’s desire to rewrite the immigration rules so “misinterpretations” of the right to family life do not block immigration deportations. For those unfamiliar with Teresa’s speech, David is referring to cat owners and cat lovers! Never again will a cat loving cat owner be allowed to stay in the UK! Apparently Teresa May does not like cats and frankly despises the beasts if the offending cat in question has an immigrant human living with it! Well; David has come to the rescue now and to the relief of all cat hating people has declared that the blighted Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights has no place in modern Britain. What do we need Article 8 for anyway when we have people like David and Teresa looking after our rights and fundamental freedoms?

Not satisfied with these two declarations of humanitarian regression, David went on to highlight a list of other mind-numbing proposals that he and a group of overpaid civil servants have thought up over a few pints. You can just about imagine the conversation that went on in that pub:

David: what are we gonna do with all these immigrants bringing their relatives and offspring to the UK, it’s all a bit much?

Civil Servant: How about we get them to pay for the privilege Prime Minister, we can get them to post a bond, like in those cowboy movies and then when your alien arrives we nab the migrant for some minor contravention of his visa and scupper the bond, that way we get to up the deportation numbers and make a tidy profit in the runnings! The newspapers will love it!

The new proposal will require families who want to sponsor overseas relatives to settle in Britain to post a financial bond worth thousands of pounds. Keith Vaz reacted angrily highlighting that this bond, would be prejudicial to the Asian communities and  stated that it will “antagonise settled communities in Britain and enrage our allies such as India“.

The proposal to make forced marriage a criminal offence will initially be limited to introducing a criminal penalty for those who breach a forced marriage prevention order. The police and Home Office have already admitted that this new offence will be difficult to enforce as it will require victims to testify against their own close relatives and that is unlikely to be a very appealing option for many of the victims. Cameron said the creation of an offence of forced marriage must ensure that it does not prevent or hinder victims reporting what has happened to them. Quite how he plans to achieve this, he did not say.

The prime minister emphasised that he wanted even tougher action against illegal immigrants in Britain. To achieve this he announced the creation of yet another new national crime agency dedicated to border policing. They will have responsibility for securing and safeguarding our borders. For those readers who thought that the UK Border Agency moto, ‘safer, more secure borders’ was meant to achieve this same objective will be forgiven for being wrong. It didn’t achieve the objective and that is why we now need another agency which will undoubtedly work very closely with the UK Border Agency and a lot of the other agencies that have been created through regular agency meetings, discussions and of course the long awaited agency reports that now feed many tabloid newspapers with news stories. Sadly, this new agency that will be securing and safeguarding our borders will not succeed! Apparently before the agency has even been named, David has acknowledged that the public will have to chip in and help out. The prime minister has asked the public (not clear whether this is directed at the visa bearing public or includes those who have no visas); to spy on anyone they don’t like the look of (and we all know what they look like) and help out by calling the UK Border Agency or Crimestoppers or failing any response from either of these agencies, the Coastguard, Military or Airforce.

For our part we have no idea what the new ‘agency’ will be doing or how it will be set up. How much funding it will receive, at what cost to other departments, whether they will get their own helicopters, fast response vehicles, vans and detention centres or whether they will continue sponging off the police budget as in previous new agency creations. However; what does appear to be emerging is a pattern. This pattern is one of hopeless and hapless reactionary changes to the immigration rules, erosion of basic Human Rights and political profiteering at the expense of fundamental freedoms. What better way to further alienate migrants and ethnic minorities than to turn public perception against foreigners by openly asking the public to ‘spy on’ and ‘report on’ others! Luckily I had the great fortune of not having lived through the Second World War. However; was it not Adolf that asked the German people to identify the Jews in the community? Of course I am not suggesting that David plans to drag people off to concentration camps, not yet anyway, but this plan is designed to do nothing but encourage prejudice and legitimise behaviour based on prejudice. You will be forgiven for thinking that the new agency, designed to safeguard these borders, will be nothing more than a contracted out operation to follow up all the telephone calls and tip-offs that David has invited from members of the public. The reality here is that neither David Cameron nor anyone who peceded him has the slightest idea what to do about immigration other than to introduce agencies, create headlines and muster public attention through political one-upmanship!

The prime minister said “For our part in government, we are creating a new national crime agency with a dedicated border policing command which will have responsibility for safeguarding the security of our border, But I want everyone in the country to help … including by reporting suspected illegal immigrants to our Border Agency through the Crimestoppers phoneline or through the Border Agency website. Together, we will reclaim our borders and send illegal immigrants home.”