Patrick O'Flynn

Patrick O'Flynn is a British political commentator and journalist, known for his coverage of UK and EU politics. He was formerly a senior member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and a Member of the European Parliament.

Immigration amnesty risks pushing Britain to the point of no return

THE British Left has always had a genius for coming up with idiotic ideas based on deeply flawed thinking on the part of "intellectuals" who do not possess the brains they were born with.

From nationalisation of the means of production as an antidote to the supposed evils of capitalism, to Cambridge's legendary community bicycle scheme (in which all 300 municipal cycles left around the city centre were stolen on the first day), the Left has come up with some magnificently half-baked notions.

Now it has another cracker: a "pathway to citizenship" for the estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants, visa overstayers and failed asylum seekers thought to be residing in Britain.

Yesterday a rally was held in Trafalgar Square by the "Strangers Into Citizens" campaign which is calling for the Government to grant work permits to illegals who have managed to evade deportation for four years or more.

The campaign alleges that two-thirds of the British public agree that undocumented migrants who have been here for four years should be allowed to stay and be given full access to the labour market. It claims that such a move would bring huge benefits to Britain through extra tax revenues garnered from the workers who could come out of their "shadow" existence in the black economy.

Indeed, even Migration Watch UK, the immigration-sceptic think tank, allows that these tax revenues could be worth £1 billion a year to the Treasury.

But, in its usual careful and considered way, it also calculates that the cost of inevitable increased access to the welfare state would top £1.5 billion. Massive extra pressure would be placed upon the nation's extremely limited stock of social housing.

And that isn't the half of it.

Because, of course, giving people who have quite deliberately flouted our immigration laws the reward of a pathway to citizenship would set a catastrophic precedent for the future.

It would send out a message across the world that anyone who can cheat their way into Britain and avoid being sent home for four years (not difficult, given the Government's parlous record on throwing out failed asylum seekers) can expect the full benefits of our nation to be placed at their disposal.

Other countries which have granted such amnesties to illegal entrants have found the effect was to create a massive "pull factor", particularly from impoverished Third World nations, thus increasing illegal immigration in the long term.

As Migration Watch notes, over the past 20 years, Italy has granted five amnesties and Spain six. On almost every occasion the number of applications was greater than for the previous amnesty. In the case of Italy the numbers rose from 119,000 in a 1988 amnesty to 700,000 in 2002 while in Spain 44,000 were granted an amnesty in 1985 but in 2005 this had also risen to 700,000.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne says of the proposed amnesty: "This would severely damage our country. At the moment local authorities are still coping with the pressure on schools and services but if we had the green light for unprecedented immigration they wouldn't be able to handle it."

Yet among the great and the good supporting this cause in Trafalgar Square yesterday were Labour deputy leadership contender Jon Cruddas, trade union leader Jack Dromey, the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac MurphyO'Connor and Bishop of Southwark the Rt Rev Tom Butler.

Mr Cruddas came to prominence by being the first Labour MP to warn that the BNP was making inroads into white working class communities because of immigration issues surrounding pay and access to housing.

Perhaps he could now explain how encouraging a massive new influx into Britain from the world's poorest countries will help solve these problems for his constituents in Dagenham.

Mr Dromey is better known as Mr Harriet Harman, so enough said there. By his participation, Cardinal MurphyO'Connor is clearly signalling that infallibility does not extend beyond the Pope in the Catholic faith, while perhaps the Rt Rev Butler has been up at the Irish Embassy again.

His misadventure at Christmas when he was found throwing toys out of the back of a neighbour's car shows that his judgment can become clouded. As he noted at the time: "I'm the Bishop of Southwark. It's what I do." Last month the think tank Civitas said the scale of immigration had reached a tipping point beyond which Britain would cease to be a single nation.

If this latest brainwave is ever put into practice it would surely mark the moment that such a tipping point was passed and Britain became an economic zone and all-round multicultural hell-hole rather than a proud nation with distinct cultural and political traditions.

Clergy in Trafalgar Square yesterday were clearly motivated by their understanding of the universality of human life and we must all put more thought into how the world's most benighted nations can be lifted out of poverty.

But those calling for this amnesty show no recognition of the legitimacy of nation states, the rights citizenship confers and the ties of kinship which give Britons a duty to each other over and above their duties to citizens of the rest of the world.

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