The spirit of Valentine's Day

[BillyStubbsTears]

From the Home Office.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/302095617092632576

I assumed this was a spoof account but it appears to be the real deal.

f**k me sideways, what have we become?

EDIT. Actually, I've only just noticed, this was from 2013...

...when Theresa May was Home Secretary.

[hoolahoop]

Lovely country we've been living in for the last decade.

Was that supposed to be the remotest bit funny  or just the early roots of the hostile environment that we see weaving its way into every part of our society today.

The new Immigration policies have been so poorly thought out and those straying slightly outside of the parameters set will make Windrush pale by comparison.

[Boomstick]

So your OK with sham marriages for UK citizenship.?

[BillyStubbsTears]

If you REALLY need it spelling out for you BS, then I guess there's not much hope for you.

[Boomstick]

 
So your not answering my question?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yeah. Alright. I'll answer your question. Excuse me if I get a little f**king tetchy but this hits very hard to people very close to me. Read this. All of it. You might learn something about how the Home Office that May ran, and the culture that tweet reflects, impact on the lives of real people.

1) No of course I'm not "OK with sham marriages". I think people who have sham marriages should be prosecuted and deported. I'd have thought that would be obvious to anyone.

2) But I don't believe that the Home Office writing spiteful little witticisms like this will do the slightest thing to stop the criminal gangs who arrange sham marriages.

3) But then, it's got f**k all to do with stopping those people. It's all about broadcasting to the Little Englanders who chunter about it. That's the real audience.

4) Just like when May was Home Secretary and she sent those vans round with the "Here illegally? Go home or we're coming for you" signs. As if THAT is going to make an illegal immigrant go "oh yeah! Best leave."

5) May instigated a culture at the Home Office called "Hostile Environment" on immigration and immigrants. But that was less to do with actually dealing with the problems, it was to do with sending a message out to people that she was being really, really hard on illegal immigrants.

6) But here's the rub. There are perfectly innocent people who get caught in the cross-fire. Like the many GENUINELY married people who have been split up because of investigations which have been mismanaged. Like the Windrush shambles - telling pensioners who had been here since being kids that they had to go "home" to Jamaica.

7) And this is the bit where it gets REALLY f**king personal. The Home Office's Hostile Culture f**ks up the lives of people who have every right to be in this country.

8) Like my young brother-in-law.

9) My father-in-law came from Italy to London in 1970 to marry an English woman that he'd fallen in love with. Because THAT is what most marriages between people from different countries are based on.

10) He set up his life in England and worked without every once signing on for 33 years. He paid his taxes, including corporation tax from the successful small company that he set up. A company that employed English people. He was given indefinte leave to remain by the Home Office in 1978. He was the life and soul of his community. Holder of parties, cracker of jokes, flirter with the women. he ran weekend sports classes for local kids.

11) As does happen, that marriage failed and he met a younger Italian woman, married her and they set up home in Reading, where he worked by then. They had a baby when he was 43 years old.

12) The young boy has an English birth certificate and was educated in England, had English friends and spoke only English.

13) My father-in-law, at 51, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He and his wife decided that, for his last year or so, they would move to Italy to be closer to her family. But his health declined rapidly and the move when it came was very difficult and not smoothly managed. They ended up chucking out a load of old papers rather than spend time and money transporting them to Italy. Because they had more pressing matters to deal with.

14) He died within 2 weeks of arriving in Italy. His son was 10 years old.

15) When his son got to 18, he decided he wanted to take out an English passport. having been born in england to a father with indefinite leave to remain, he had a right to do so. Specifically in his case, he wanted an English passport because he wanted to join the RAF. He felt more allegiance to England than to Italy.

16) My wife and I helped him with the application to Theresa May's Hostile Environment Home Office. We were told it was entirely his responsibility to provide evidence that his father had been given indefinite leave to remain in 1978. of course, he couldn't because he didn't have the paperwork.

17) We had an extended correspondence with the Home Office about this, explaining, with evidence, the circumstances. Showing tax returns and Companies House info about her father. Showing doctors' reports about his terminal cancer. Showing evidence that he'd emigrated in chaos. We got a stonewall response. The Home Office point blank refused to go and look through THEIR records to find evidence of the right to remain that THEY had conferred. So my young brother-in-law was denied the British passport that is his right. He was put through the trauma of re-living the chaos and heartbreak of seeing his dad clear out his family home while on his f**king death bed. He saw his future career plans dashed. And he was put through that because of Theresa May's Hostile Environment.

So excuse me if I get a bit f**king tetchy when I see the Kitsons at the Home Office sending out idiotic tweets like that, aimed at their miserable little xenophobic supporters. Because there are real people with real lives who get f**ked over by the culture that that nasty, vindictive, spiteful f**king woman put in place.

Has THAT answered your question?

But that's all secondary. I'd have thought it was f**king obvious to anyone with an ounce of understanding of the concept of dignity and human love that the day when we celebrate love between partners wasn't the day to send out nasty, bitter messages like that one from May's Home Office. Get on with dealing with illegal immigrants of course. But have some f**king dignity while you are doing it. Because you represent the values of this country.

[Boomstick]

So you are against illegal sham marriages, but also against the government enforcing the law and communicating and connecting with the people?

Would you prefer if the government communicated using legalese?

[i_ateallthepies]

Broomstick, you are a f**king disgrace to the human race!!

[Glyn_Wigley]

So you are against illegal sham marriages, but also against the government enforcing the law and communicating and connecting with the people?

Would you prefer if the government communicated using legalese?

Legalese, no.

Professionalism, yes.

But obviously it's more a case of you 'being OK with a Crown Department acting like dogwhistling cnuts'

[Not Now Kato]

Boomstick,  you frequently come across as not exactly the sharpest knife in the draw; but that last post is so below the belt as to be totally disgraceful.  Shame on you.