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Good riddance! Those of us who believe in an open immigration system acknowledge that this should not mean we let in those who support terrorism. So hurrah say I to this news:
“The Home Secretary has issued an order revoking Omar Bakri Mohamed’s indefinite leave to remain and to exclude him from the UK on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good,” a Home Office spokesman said.
The wording “not conducive to the public good” comes from the Immigration Act 1971. The government says it needs new powers to deal with terrorism. The funny thing is that I cannot remember anyone talking about being able to exclude preachers of hate if they are “not conducive to the public good” before this last week. Could it be that the government does not actually know what powers it has?
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Will Stephens writes:
“Could it be that the government does not actually know what powers it has?”
Prescott may not know, but you can be sure that the rest of the bastards do (and did).
It just suits the authoritarian instincts of the neo-Maoists in Za-NuLabour to pretend otherwise.
Home Secretaries have been excluding people (some scum, some not – remember George Raft and Lenny Bruce?) for decades.
I agree with GCooper on this. They know very well the powers they have but they are not in the doughnut making business they are in the business of law making. Their first instinct is to make new laws but never to see that existing laws are adequately enforced unless it suits them.
This particular law is way too open ended in it’s wording….”presence not conducive to the public good”. In this particular case I don’t care much for the character involved but are we to trust the Home Secretary on what to consider the public good to be in all possible cases?
Maybe what we’re seeing here is a setup–for a showdown between activist judges and Tony’s mob.
It is far easier to just write a new piece of legislation than to sit for long periods of time actually studying, and inwardly digesting the laws already in existence, that requires intelligence and comprehension, both are in short supply in our present Government and Judiciary.
To put it more succinctly – they don’t know their arse from their elbow..
It is far easier to just write a new piece of legislation than to sit for long periods of time actually studying, and inwardly digesting the laws already in existence
I doubt it’s easier to make new laws than use the existing ones, but I’m sure it’s more fun. You get to act the statesman in parliament, and deride your enemies because they do not understand the dangers we face, which you understand because you are an important government minister, and you see secret briefings, and you are protecting the nation. Must make them feel like the man, and it keeps them occupied. What else would they do? They went into politics. Politicians make laws. It’s what they do. It’s all that they do. And they absolutely, positively, will not stop.
Don’t get your hopes up just yet. They admit that if “Barking” Bakri comes back to the UK then there actually wouldn’t be anything they could do. Certainly he would probably be detained in an immigration centre, and if he still had his his heart condition then he would be treatmed under the NHS for that problem, no doubt free of charge. About the only thing the Government seems to have actually done is to block his £43 per week disability allowance – and that only because he failed to fill in the correct form to say he was going on ‘holiday’ – they have not blocked the payment of benefit he receives for his 7 children though.
….”presence not conducive to the public good”.
That indeed is very open ended. If the judges cooperate and agree that “presence is not conductive…” fine. But, judging from past behaviour, they will overturn this exclusion, and let him back in. So maybe you do need some more clear and definite legislation.
Of course, the big question is why did they let him in in the first place, why did they grant him and others like him asylum, why Britain has become a shelter for fugitive terrorists, which not only get asylum, they get immunity from justice, under feeble pretextes, and welfare too.
This is sheer madness. Some countries, like Germany, import guest workers, to sustain their economy and aging population; this makes sense. Britain is importing terrorists and preachers of violence. and sustains them on welfare…
JT: going on from the point you made,ref Bakries benefits, I am pretty sure that the powers that be can take away tut £30,000 people carrier straight away. ( I am disabled) the motability terms include: The vehicle must be used for the benefit of MAIN user, & as it will be taxed (RFL) “Disabled” the car can be used solely for & on behalf of the Disabled person, if the Shit is in Lebanon he cannot be entitled!!??
Bernie, This particular law is way too open ended in it’s wording….”presence not conducive to the public good”
Indeed. That’s because the relevant clauses of the Immigration Act 1971 were designed to keep an essentially arbitrary power descending from prerogative in the hands of ministers.
As I noted on another discussion, it is a power that has frequently been weilded in the past for political purposes. That is probably the case here too. Bakri is not being excluded for anything in particular he’s done, I suggest, or he’d have been dealt with before; it is merely he’s a political embarrassment. Regardless of Bakri’s merits or lack of them it is highly undesirable in my book that indivdual freedom of movement should be determined by what looks good for the Government in the media.
When “the public good” is the pretext for doing something, you can be sure that individual freedom is being trampled.
I recall that a few years ago — I think the Tories were in power — the U.S. Nation of Islam nutter Louis Farrakhan was banned from entering the UK. He later managed to get in, to much controversy.
Many many years ago (the early 50s?) I remember the Home Secretary answering Tom Driberg (revered Chairman of the Labour Party for many years, well-known “cottager” to everyone except the General Public) and refusing to deny entry to the UK to the top person of the Oxford Group, well-known for their anti-Communist version of Christianity.
In those days, when the Home Secretary said “Yes or “No” that was it. The same went for someone due to be hanged, or not.
It will be interesting to find out if that’s the same today. If it’s anything to do with the judges (of any kind) or the European Court of Human Rights, perhaps the public will at last realise that they’d rather have politicians (whom they can hold responsible) make decisions about their safety that a judiciary (which they can’t).
Government by judiciary has already gone too far in the US – eg, the Supreme Court has ruled that individual States cannot legalise the medical use of marijuana. Do we want that sort of thing to happen here?
“Bakri is not being excluded for anything in particular he’s done, I suggest, or he’d have been dealt with before”
There is another possibility: before 7/11 nobody thought that such atrocity could happen in Britain, where muslims were treated with exceptional tolerance. Nobody thought that Bakri’s preaching could lead to that. Now they know better.
It was exceptional incompetence and stupidity not to have dealt with those hate and violence inciting mullas before.
It was incredible incompetence and stupidity to have granted them asylum in Britain in the first place.
What about Bakri’s wifes, children and their mothers ? I can’t find anything about them.
Kingsley Amis wrote a brilliant sketch in his memoirs about Driberg drunkenly chasing Martin Amis around their home with his trousers at halfmast and professing his adoration for him.
Will said: ‘Good riddance’ — but what happened to Bakri since then?
Here is an interview with the man himself:
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?id=1464§ion=3
Cinnamon