Church of England in 'sham marriage' crackdown

Pixilated policeman in bridal handcuffs arrangement!

The BBC is reporting the agreement between the Church of England and the UK Border Agency in their combined attempt to reduce the number of "sham marriages". Of course, it all depends on what is defined as a sham marriage. This is basically aimed at non-Europeans, as we are being told. I take it that the term "European" means a Rumpuy-Pumpuy type of European and not a Ukrainian or a Serb, for example.

In this matter I feel there is a difference between a sham marriage and a bogus one. Sham marriages occur on a regular basis. Many saying their vows without meaning them. In the Roman Catholic understanding, a deliberate attitude of negativity can lead to grounds for annulment. However sham they may at the outset, most are consummated. Bogus marriages on the other hand are mostly not. It is a purely financial and status acquiring business. Most brides would shudder at the thought of intimacy with some of the grooms on offer. A lot of the grooms seem totally out of place next to their nervous brides. Bogus is bogus and sham is something else.

The difficulty for clergy is that they know only a tiny minority of their parishioners. However, they are in the legal position of caring for all souls. So it is relatively easy for a smooth-talking stranger to say that his niece is in need of a marriage to be performed fairly quickly. How is a priest to gainsay it all? Probably by reading up on the new guidelines.

The practice of bogus marriages is not uncommon. There is a big trade in it, as with all aspects of people trafficking. I suspect though, that this is not being applied fairly. It would appear that Africans are more likely to get caught than Asians. Surely that would not be right. What about marriages of convenience by people from the Sub-continent? Maybe I'm being too jumpy. But the track record in these things is to use a sticking plaster on the easy bits and turn a blind eye to the more complicated.

UK Border Agency plonkers bordering on the barmy!

You have to hand it to the UK Border Agency. They're a bunch of tender-hearted wonders, aren't they. As with most agencies working for the New Labour Regime, they interpret laws in the same way as Basil Fawlty interpreted menus. Because this government never thinks further than the end of the pen that's writing the stuff they enact into law, things go wrong.

It was a good idea to introduce a law to safeguard young Asian women against forced marriages. But the catchall nature of New Labour thinking includes every young woman, even Canadian ones. So it is that nineteen-year-old Canadian Rochelle Wallis who married her Welsh husband Adam in November 2008, two years after they first met and fell in love, is to be deported. Deported? What for? According to the UK Border Agency she falls under the scope of the Forced Marriages Act, which was passed in 2007.

To add insult to injury these plonkers told Rochelle that her deportation, until she is 21, is a mere "inconvenience". Naturally, she sees it very differently. "It's more than an inconvenience, it's ripping my marriage apart".

What I find so appalling is that we now have these agency staff who are quasi civil servants making decisions that would have pleased the leaders of the former eastern Europe no end. Every day that goes by, some agency or other cocks up big time or makes someone's life hell somewhere.

When are we going to say it has to end?

Ignorance in the Immigration Service

I've long since thought that the level of education in the country was dipping to levels of paucity. A catholic approach to learning is lacking in certain areas. Knowing a broad range of interesting facts and information is deemed unnecessary in today's modern world. So it comes as no surprise to learn that the Immigration Service has no clue that there are Welsh speakers in Patagonia.

On Bank Holiday Monday, a Welsh-speaking Patagonian Evelyn Calcabrini, aged 20, was heading to Glyndyfrdwy, Denbighshire, to stay with a local couple for six months. However she has been sent back from Heathrow Airport to Patagonia after immigration officials refused to believe she was travelling to Wales to learn Welsh. Even with the intervention of two Plaid Cymru MPs, the UK Border Agency said "NO!"

An official said, "We have strict rules in place to protect Britain's border and the responsibility rests with applicants to demonstrate they meet the requirements of these rules and will comply with any conditions attached to their leave. Where they do not, entry will be refused. The system is firm and fair, and it applies to everyone." Firm and fair? Not if it is being adjudicated by educationally sub-normal apparatchiks. Even after being told that the couple would vouch for the young woman, these culturally unaware penpushers declined her entry.

I suggest there is a trip laid on to Patagonia for the UK Border Agency. Let them see for themselves that Wales has historic links with the area. What do they say - travel broadens the horizons. Having let in a host of undesirables on the flimsy evidence that they have never heard of Abu Hamza and the like, these protectors of the borders need a few lessons that might help themselves and us all.

Jacqui Smith talks up her border patrols!

I'm not sure whether I follow what Jacqui Smith is on about. I don't think Jim Naughtie on the Today programme did either. She's got this new agency (she starts one a month, it appears!) called the UK Border Agency. It a mishmash of customs wallers and visa checkers. What she hasn't said is who of us is going to be checked. Is it dodgy looking Osama bin Laden lookalikes or will it be your average Joe Bloggs? Are we all going to be questioned on our return to the UK? Just holding a British passport doesn't prove anything. I could have left the country by boat and come back by plane. I could have lived overseas for a time, which I did. She wouldn't have a clue where I'd been!

So the big question is this. Will it work? All these new powers she's giving to her minions are going to be useless unless they can excercise them. Who is going to be stopped? Is it all of us on a random basis? That could work. Ginger-haired people just as much as burka-clad females. No discrimination! Will it be just foreign passport holders? Or those with requiring visas? Who knows?

Jacqui Smith doesn't fill me with great enthusiasm. She appears to be a jobsworth. If she doesn't check those leaving the country how does she get her figures matching up? She doesn't, that's why she has no clue as to how many illegals are here, some of whom have been cleaning out her office!

I bet it'll be like Tony Hancock berating his landlady in the Radio Ham. She has complained about him going in and out of the house. "I don't keep on going in and out! I came home, I went out, and now I've come in again. I don't call that "keep going in and out". You saw me go out, you must have expected me to come in again!" Exactly. That's what we should say to these Border Agents!

Jacqui talks turkey!