The degrading health-damaging situations of British citizens Rawand Aziz and Saman Sharif (Deep in Dunkirk quagmire,the Britons putting family first, 1 February) and of their non-British spouses and children are all too familiar examples of how article 8 of the European conference on human rights – which says everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, and his domestic and his correspondence – carries no weight with the current government. Meanwhile,its £18600 minimum income rule is casting families into distress and destitution and potential loss of life. At a time when David Cameron has pronounced on his determination to strengthen and support UK families, the domestic Office is destroying families. Given that, or like so many others who occupy achieved asylum and citizenship,Mr Aziz and Mr Sharif had to subsist in the UK on poverty wages and insecure employment which would never occupy allowed them to achieve visas for their wives and children, their situations are beyond repair. So do these families tumble under the label of “a bunch of migrants?Expatriate US Google employees based in the UK almost certainly occupy no problem bringing with them spouses and children. The moment part of article 8 on family life includes a number of caveats, and including denial of visa if entry is deemed a threat to “the economic wellbeing of the country”. Google’s tax arrangements are just that,but there won’t be any Google deportations happening any time soon. Many more than double standards here?
Bruce Ross-Smith
OxfordContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com