Church of England in 'sham marriage' crackdown

Pixilated policeman in bridal handcuffs arrangement!

The BBC is reporting the agreement between the Church of England and the UK Border Agency in their combined attempt to reduce the number of "sham marriages". Of course, it all depends on what is defined as a sham marriage. This is basically aimed at non-Europeans, as we are being told. I take it that the term "European" means a Rumpuy-Pumpuy type of European and not a Ukrainian or a Serb, for example.

In this matter I feel there is a difference between a sham marriage and a bogus one. Sham marriages occur on a regular basis. Many saying their vows without meaning them. In the Roman Catholic understanding, a deliberate attitude of negativity can lead to grounds for annulment. However sham they may at the outset, most are consummated. Bogus marriages on the other hand are mostly not. It is a purely financial and status acquiring business. Most brides would shudder at the thought of intimacy with some of the grooms on offer. A lot of the grooms seem totally out of place next to their nervous brides. Bogus is bogus and sham is something else.

The difficulty for clergy is that they know only a tiny minority of their parishioners. However, they are in the legal position of caring for all souls. So it is relatively easy for a smooth-talking stranger to say that his niece is in need of a marriage to be performed fairly quickly. How is a priest to gainsay it all? Probably by reading up on the new guidelines.

The practice of bogus marriages is not uncommon. There is a big trade in it, as with all aspects of people trafficking. I suspect though, that this is not being applied fairly. It would appear that Africans are more likely to get caught than Asians. Surely that would not be right. What about marriages of convenience by people from the Sub-continent? Maybe I'm being too jumpy. But the track record in these things is to use a sticking plaster on the easy bits and turn a blind eye to the more complicated.

Read More

No wedded bliss under New Labour regime

In some ways the New Labour regime mirrors the US Episcopal Church as some kind of secular PC alternative. They are all for a bizarre idea of equality, thrusting alternative lifestyles at us in place of married bliss and generally failing to help the disadvantaged and the wronged because they have a blanket approach to it all.

New Labour heard that some sub-continental brides had been sold into marital slavery and abuse in order to obtain cash dowries for the grasping grooms. At first this was dismissed because no self-respecting New Labour apparatchik could bring himself/herself to accept anything untoward from the Asian community. Then they were forced to admit that forced marriages needed acting upon. Of course, being New Labour, they couldn't construct an act that dealt with the problem. No, they had to include every race, creed and human being possible into their law. So it is that totally innocent people get caught up in this legal minefield.

The Home Office is diligently applying the rules and regulations with vigour. British bride Amber Aguilar, from Friern Barnet, north London, faced the dilemma of having to choose between her career ambitions in the UK or living abroad with her Chilean husband because of the policy. The ‘heartbroken’ 18-year-old chose to live with 19-year-old Diego Andres Aguilar Quila, who had to leave the country recently after his student visa expired. The Home Office has been labelled heartless. I'd say they were just a bunch of jobsworths with a penchant for momentary lapses into jobsworthlessnesses (like losing computer data!).

It is not what Britain should be about. The sooner this lot go the better for all of us!

Read More

UK Border Agency plonkers bordering on the barmy!

You have to hand it to the UK Border Agency. They're a bunch of tender-hearted wonders, aren't they. As with most agencies working for the New Labour Regime, they interpret laws in the same way as Basil Fawlty interpreted menus. Because this government never thinks further than the end of the pen that's writing the stuff they enact into law, things go wrong.

It was a good idea to introduce a law to safeguard young Asian women against forced marriages. But the catchall nature of New Labour thinking includes every young woman, even Canadian ones. So it is that nineteen-year-old Canadian Rochelle Wallis who married her Welsh husband Adam in November 2008, two years after they first met and fell in love, is to be deported. Deported? What for? According to the UK Border Agency she falls under the scope of the Forced Marriages Act, which was passed in 2007.

To add insult to injury these plonkers told Rochelle that her deportation, until she is 21, is a mere "inconvenience". Naturally, she sees it very differently. "It's more than an inconvenience, it's ripping my marriage apart".

What I find so appalling is that we now have these agency staff who are quasi civil servants making decisions that would have pleased the leaders of the former eastern Europe no end. Every day that goes by, some agency or other cocks up big time or makes someone's life hell somewhere.

When are we going to say it has to end?

Read More