blessed britons

Low pay is not just a problem of an extreme underclass or of migrants; it is endemic across the country. One in seven of all working households are poor; one fifth of all workers, 5.3 million people, are paid less than £6.67 an hour (two thirds of the median), the worst low-pay rate of any in Europe. It works out at less than a £12,000 salary. In some regions, the proportion of low-paid is well over 25%, while in some constituencies (in Wales, Birmingham, the West Midlands, even the rural West Country) it is comfortably over 40%.

Zarine Rentia was a 15-year-old Indian girl who had been severely disabled by an extremely rare disease. On a visit to Britain in 2005, she was diagnosed and began a course of treatment at Great Ormond Street, the world famous children’s hospital. In the meantime, she attended a local London School, where she impressed children and staff alike. With the support of Zarine’s doctors, her mother applied to the Home Office for leave to remain in Britain on medical grounds, but was refused. After an immigration judge turned down their appeal in February, mother and daughter returned to Gujarat, where Zarine died weeks later.

Ama Sumani, a 39-year-old Ghanaian widow and mother of two, had come to Britain as a student in 2002. She overstayed her visa but worked and paid taxes. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and treated by the NHS. In January, immigration officials removed her from her hospital bed in Cardiff and deported her to Ghana, where she died several weeks later. The Lancet, Britain’s leading medical journal, denounced the government’s behaviour as an “atrocious barbarism”.

Unlike most European countries, and contrary to the recommendations of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in Britain there is no legal limit to the time a person may be held in immigration detention. Periods of up to six months detention — for people who have not even been charged with a crime — are not uncommon. The IRCs are overcrowded and lack medical and recreational facilities. Communication with the outside world is severely restricted. Many detainees claim to have been insulted and assaulted by immigration staff. A recent study found that excessive force was used against a number of detainees who had already suffered torture in their countries of origin.

There was the general sense of callousness. Churchill permitted himself to make the remark that the Indian population bring it onto itself by breeding like rabbits. And there was another statement of his when he said that he was well aware that the Indian people were the beastliest in the world, next to the Germans. It cannot be said that the central government was full of sympathy.