Dr. Suneel Mehmi – LLB Honours in Laws, LLM in Law and Society, PhD in the Law and English Literature
JAI MAA KAALI!
13.01.2023
The Legal Change (FACTS)
From April 2024, the minimum salary requirement for people who want to bring a foreign family member or partner to the UK will rise to £38,700. This is a jump from the current threshold of £18,600.
Comparative Law (FACTS)
Where countries do express the requirement as a minimum income, such as in Belgium or Norway, Library research has so far not found any examples of the threshold being set above or close to £38,700 (the level the UK Government ultimately intends to reach).
SUNEEL’S ANALYSIS: Comparative law shows that this government has to be seen as extorting a price on love compared to every other supposedly civilised Western country in the world. They have deliberately set an unrealistic threshold to counter what they see as the threat of immigration. So, the UK is a pioneer in racism and paranoia over immigration compared to every other country.
The Rationale (SUNEEL’S ANALYSIS)
Obviously, the aim is to cut immigration. However, the unspoken secondary rationale is to construct immigrants as ‘burdens’ on the system who might claim benefits from British people by emphasising that families have to support themselves without any help from the government:
‘Ministers hope the move will cut immigration levels, which have reached record highs in recent years, and ensure families can support themselves’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-67637504
The ministers are constructing immigration as illegal, attaching the label of illegal to the immigrants that have come into the country, as though this is a violation of fairness, ‘the rules’, the law and order. Again, there is the perception that the immigrants are taking over the country, that their entry is ‘unsustainable’, as though this country with all its wealth and resources couldn’t accommodate them:
In a statement to MPs, the home secretary said migration to the UK “needs to come down” and there had been “abuse” of health and care visas for years.
“Enough is enough,” Mr Cleverly said. “Immigration policy must be fair, legal, and sustainable.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67612106
The government is using its own failure in providing infrastructure and services to the communities to justify the action it is taking, pitting us against them to cover up its own failure of duty:
‘People are understandably worried about housing, GP appointments, school places and access to other public services when they can see their communities growing quickly in numbers.’
Conclusion and Suneel’s Personal Comment
While seeming to apply to everyone in a false pretension of ‘universality’, the policy is deliberately targeted at ethnic minority men who are the most likely to marry abroad and to bring a partner from abroad. As such, this legislation has to be seen as an attack on the ethnic minority men and their ability to marry and to reproduce in this country. This is a deliberately racist and sexist policy.
Yes, white British men and white British women can meet people from abroad or that are not UK citizens and marry them. No one is saying that is not the case. However, what is the bigger likelihood about who this will happen to – someone who has deep connections with the people of another country, or people that most likely don’t?
The policy asks the ethnic minority man to become wealthier than the average worker. What is the average wage in this country? The threshold is above it –
According to the ONS, the average salary in the UK in 2023 for all employees was £29,669, a 6.8% increase from 2022. For full-time workers, the average UK salary in 2023 was £34,963, a 5.8% increase YoY. https://standout-cv.com/pages/average-uk-salary
Why should ethnic minority men (or men that want to marry someone from abroad) have to be wealthier than all of the other men in this country to bring someone over? Why do they have to work harder than everyone else? There is no reason for it, except to discourage people from marrying someone from abroad. And to make anyone that can’t earn enough feel like a man that cannot even provide for his family and afford to love someone from a community in a different country, to render them financially powerless and devalue them and their ties and roots.
The ethics of the legislation are horrible. How disgusting is it to put a price on love? How disgusting is it to put up walls around love so that people cannot move within the channels of love? Are other people from other countries – who haven’t been brought up in the privilege and wealth that we have – whose financial problems have probably been caused by us in this country and the Western world – aren’t they loveable? Can they not be the wives and mothers, or husbands and fathers in this country?
The government’s financial control of the family unit – the original economy – is unethical, unfair, unjust and, I would argue, illegal. They are acting ultra vires – everyone has the right to a family irrespective of money. Someone here can marry someone and then claim benefits because they have married a UK citizen. Someone from here can have kids if they can’t afford them and then rely on the government for help. And they do. This ‘problem’ that legislates love is a false problem because the government only sees immigrants as a burden on the system out of racism.
Can I ask you, do you have to buy the right to be a citizen in a country, or to become a wife, husband, father or mother? Do you have to buy these things? Since when? Why do you have to be a wallet to love someone? Is money everything in this world, the only condition for love and the family? How disgusting do you have to be to think this? Isn’t the government supposed to support love and the family? Why is nobody challenging these laws? This law is the mark of a government that only cares about money and keeping its money to itself, that literally sees citizenship and love as expenditure that is not worth having – unless you keep to your own in this country. Endogamy is the practice of only marrying within your own community, clan or tribe. This is the legislation of endogamy which bears striking similarity to those people that make their children marry their cousins so that they can keep the money in the family – a practice only concerned with resources, ownership and a financial distrust of any outsider who will come in and take a portion of the share for themselves.
diary of a lone man 