An Amnesty on Stupidity

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, supports the idea of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, it emerged earlier this week.

An odd stance, because it conflicts with the (alleged) wishes of both the government and his own Conservative Party.

The thing about this which is most annoying is thus; during the mayoral elections, Johnson stood as the genuinely conservative candidate.

I realise that running against 'Red' Ken Livingstone would make Tony Benn look Right-wing, but the abuse heaped on Johnson was second only to that reserved for the BNP. There was nothing so below-the-belt that Johnson could not be smeared with it; he was a racist, despite his wife being half-Indian, he was a clueless, brain dead boob despite being able to speak classical Greek, he was going to get all the BNP's second choice votes - you get the idea.

There must have been many Londoners who toyed with the idea of voting BNP but did not, opting for Johnson instead because he seemed a sensible mainstream choice; my own grandparents were amongst them.

Now, in my opinion, he has betrayed the people from all walks of life who voted for him, hoping to get their city back, for common sense to creep back into public life.

Johnson justifies his belief by saying it would be 'morally right'. What is morally right is looking after the people who elected you and their interests first.

The London School of Economics estimates there are 725,000 illegal (or, as they call them, 'irregular') immigrants and their dependants in Britain, with nearly two-thirds of them living in London. This has gone up from 430,000 in 2001.

Under the proposed 'five year minimum residence qualification', nearly 450,000 of these people could be naturalised.

"It's morally right that they should contribute in their taxes to the rest of society, as a regularisation of their status would allow," says Johnson.

He adds:

"This report has identified a huge failure of government immigration policy, a catastrophic failure to control our borders."

We agree on something, then. But is the solution really to just sweep it under the carpet?

A report published earlier this year said that 1 in 9 British residents were born abroad. A total of 720,000 foreigners were issued with National Insurance numbers last year; so this amnesty would take that total to nearly 1.3 million. This is in addition to 25,670 asylum applications in 2008, and 23,430 in 2007.

At the same time, the government predicts that the number of unemployed might hit over 3 million.

This is a very poorly thought out policy, and I think Johnson should seriously consider resigning over these remarks. Large parts of London are already unrecognisable as being in England. There are at least two schools which are almost 100% Somali, several which are 100% non-white and many where 80% of the pupils speak no English.

An amnesty might solve his headaches today, but what about when word gets back? The softer we are, the more people will come. We don't have the room for them, we don't really have the money and we certainly don't have the jobs.

What about schemes like family reunification? If illegal immigration soared by 295,000 in six years, how much will it go up when most of them are certain they can stay? Does anyone think these aspects through?

However, it's clear the government are not sincere about securing our borders. Just a few weeks ago, a family from the Congo won £150,000 from the UK Border Agency for 'unlawful detention'. They were failed asylum applicants, ordered to leave the country, but because they have children it is apparently frowned upon to put them in a detention centre.

Seeing as the Home Office detains around 2,000 child refugees a year, this could cause problems.

These problems stem from them being allowed to arrive in the first place; the first defence against illegal immigrants is at the borders. If Geert Wilders can be put straight on a plane, so can anyone.

But no. In modern Britain, it's better to deliberately create a problem, then come up with a disingenuous solution that actually solves nothing whilst furthering some unspecified goal out of sight of the public.

Boris pretends he cares about illegal immigrants having to pay tax; I'd wager he cares far more about living in a magical rainbow city which only exists in his own head, like pretty much all mainstream politicians.