HARD-LINE Tory immigration minister Mark Harper has just resigned after he admitted that he was employing a cleaner who was not legally entitled to be in the UK.
He is the political leader responsible for the ‘Hate Vans’ that have been seen on the streets of the UK.
These vans carry a message on their sides, that any person who sees the van, who is an illegal immigrant should immediately take steps to quit the UK, or face the consequences. The message sets out to terrify immigrants into quitting the country out of fear.
The same Harper was piloting an ‘Immigration Bill’ through the House of Commons to make doctors, hospital managers, landlords and all employers responsible for the legal status of anyone who came to them looking for treatment, accommodation or a job.
They would be responsible for checking the legal status of any applicant, and if they are found to be ‘collaborating’ with an illegal, will face legal consequences under the bill.
Now we have the spectacle of the Minister ‘For Hate’ employing an ‘illegal’ and saying that both he and the government department were unable to reach the correct decision over her legal status.
Referring to the legislation that would impose charges on migrants needing NHS accident and emergency treatment, the National Health Action Party said: ‘If the immigration minister cannot check his own cleaner is here legally, how does he expect hard-pressed NHS staff to check patients?
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Liberty added: ‘The vile Immigration Bill would turn landlords and vicars into border police, checking people’s status before offering them shelter or marriage services.’
You could not blame the Crown Prosecution Service if it decided that such a highly educated government minister and the Home Office that he consulted could not have made such a major mistake about the legal status of his cleaner.
Since he protests that he and the Home Office dealt with the matter responsibly, and that the ‘mistake’ was ‘understandable’, it is obvious that the bill must be scrapped as being completely unworkable, and calculated not just to put migrants into a state of fear but to do the same to doctors, hospital managers, landlords and employers generally.
The truth is that the bill, and the ‘hate vans’ express a desire of the government to put fear into migrants and force employers and others to become border police, to get the right-wing UKIP vote at the next election, by attacking migrants, as well as trade unions, the sick, the elderly and the young unemployed.
Now the Minister ‘for Hate’ has gone, his bill must follow him and also his government that has spread such misery throughout the UK with its austerity programmes, and benefit cuts.
The government is however enraging not just the working class but also its own supporters as the affair of the massive flooding in Somerset shows.
Minister Pickles has had to apologise for the lack of dredging and the huge cuts in the maintenance of flood defences, as well as the suggestions that the area was uninhabitable and should be abandoned to the sea.
Now a new line of attack has opened up, this time on employed workers who are off sick for more than four weeks. They are to be offered advice to get them back to work more quickly, with the Health and Work Service offering medical assessments and treatment plans.
It will be run by the private sector and paid for by scrapping compensation to employers for statutory sick pay. Ministers say employers will save money overall by having fewer staff off sick. They said it may save companies up to £70m a year in reduced sickness pay and related costs, as the sick are forced back to work.
Under the scheme employees will go for a work-focused occupational health assessment, where the squeeze will be put on them to either go back to work or face being fired by employers who cannot pay sick pay.
The Tories are determined to drive the UK back to the 19th century. This is why the trade unions must take general strike action to put them out and bring in a workers government and socialism.
