The Big Speech for The Big Society

Excuse Dave Whilst He Talks Himself Into a Corner.

So, yesterday we had The Big Speech on The Big Issue - Immigration, for the Big Society! Delivered with stage managed passion by the thin-lipped wonder himself, ‘Call Me Dave’. More of that later.

Immigration is a contentious issue and not one to be taken lightly. So it was unfortunate that Labour approved the appointment of Mrs Linda, (Lin) Margaret Homer as the first Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency in 2008. She headed the Immigration and Nationality Directorate at the Home Office shortly after joining the Civil Service in 2005. After some reorganisation by the Labour Party, the UK Border Agency was formed in 2008.

Proof, if proof were needed, that Labour looks after its own, Homer had been in charge of Birmingham City Council from 2002 - 2005. She left there under a cloud, having presided over the postal vote rigging scandal, involving Labour candidates, in her position as Returning Officer during the  2004 Elections. 

The Election Commission criticised her failings in her role as the Returning Officer, describing her actions as ones that would disgrace a Banana Republic. Whereupon she defended herself by saying she had been in strategic, not operational control and had confined herself to motivational management and fire fighting.

Make of that what you will. I believe that she along with her cohorts in the local Labour Party were caught out she decided to jump ship. The statement meant nothing to the local Electorate who, by now, were used to political Labour spin and, like the Commission, took it with a pinch of salt.

Not surprisingly then an organisation that was declared to be ‘unfit for purpose’ in 2005 has hardly improved by one iota under her leadership. Reviewing her period in office as leader of UKBA, the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee concluded that because of her the organisation suffered a catastrophic leadership failure. It was further stated that the Committee had been repeatedly mislead by the Agency. Typically for a Whitehall Mandarin, Mrs Homer says, in reply to her critics; “It is wholly inaccurate to seek to ascribe responsibility to me for matters of concern that occurred long after I left the agency.”

Sorry love, but you were in charge from its inception and, you followed Labour’s policy of mass, unchecked immigration to the letter. It is pure hypocrisy to say that it is nothing to do with you! It must be another Labour Party, “Nuremberg Moment.” 

As a reward for her failure at the Border Agency, in 2010 she was given the post of Permanent Secretary of the Department for Transport. Cast your minds back to the debacle that was the letting of the West Coast Mainline Rail Network Franchise. Guess who was amongst the officials accused of ignoring concerns about the letting process? That failure cost an estimated £100 million.

The following year, she was promoted again and succeeded Lesley Strathie as Chief Executive of HMRC. This year, March 2013, in a damming indictment of her abilities, MP’s have said that they have little confidence in her ability to lead HMRC.

Her legacy so far is; failure at Birmingham City Council, a backlog of a third of a million cases at UKBA, the loss of £100 million at the Department of Transport and 1 million letters unanswered at HMRC. 

It does make you wonder, if one were to dig deeper would more Lin Homers be found within Labour’s recruitment folders?

Back to the “Big Speech”, because of the Labour Party, Lin Homer and the EU it was a wasted twenty minutes of Call Me Dave’s time. 

• New Immigrants will be stripped of benefits after six months if they have not found work. 

Won’t / can’t happen. I am willing to bet that the European Court of Human Rights is already going through their Law Books to earmark the relevant pages of legislation which say that this is illegal under EU Law! It is already illegal under EU Law to ban EU immigrants from claiming benefits in their first year in this country. 

• Restrict Access to Social Housing and Healthcare.

As before and, for the same reasons. More posturing from Call Me Dave because he is running scared of UKIP.

• End Health Tourism.

This costs an estimated £200 million a year and begs the question; given the enormity of this cost, why is / has the Government allowed it to continue?

The enormity of the immigration problem goes way beyond Dave’s Big Speech. The incompetence of the UKBA rivals that of the Labour Party’s handling of the UK economy. There are, apparently, 321,726 outstanding cases involving immigrants, including the following. There is an estimated 4000 foreign criminals roaming our streets. 28500 asylum seekers. There is at least  182000 people in a “Migration Refusal Pool”, this comprises people who arrived in this country legally but cannot now be found. Some were students whose study visas expired, other whose work visas expired. The point is, there are a third of a million foreign immigrants in limbo in this country, that is if official figures can be believed.

What I find most frightening is the fact that the Border Agency has given up trying to find the vast majority of illegal immigrants, giving them, in effect, an amnesty. So far, only 1% of the one third of a million backlog has been cleared. The Home Affairs Select Committee is scathing about the lack of progress in clearing this backlog. Something which I find ironic as nearly all of the current MP’s in the House of Commons have been telling us for years that we need all of the immigrants that we can get. From “One Nation Labour, Miliband” and his merry men to Call Me Dave’s “Big Society”. Not forgetting, of course, “Clammy Clegg” and his “Amnesty Brigade”.

Don’t forget that whilst all this is going on, more and more EU immigrants are flooding in, either legally or illegally. While we are members of the EU there is nothing that we, Call Me Dave, Ed Miliband or Clueless Clegg can do about it. So, the Tories can spout rhetoric until the cows come home because believe me, it means nothing. The only way a difference can be made is to come out of the despicable, money grabbing, self serving EU. Once we do that it will not be just our borders that we regain control of but also our pride, our self respect and our ability to govern ourselves as a Sovereign Nation.

Need I add that there is only one Party which guarantees all of that, one Party which will put Britain before the Party, one Party which is passionate about Britain but, above all, one Party which believes in the welfare and wellbeing of the British people. UKIP believes in you, believe in UKIP.