If the UKBA want to watch gay sex that is what the internet is for

So refugees coming to this country seeking asylum because they face persecution back home for being gay are being made to hand over tapes of them having sex to prove it.

Now I have one short thing to say on this matter:

If the UKBA want to watch gay sex that is what the internet is for.




On a serious note though, there is also an assumption here that the asylum seeker and their partner are both seeking asylum at the same time. This is not necessarily so, only one of the partners may have been able to flee, the other may be incarcerated or have been killed in the land that the asylum seeker is fleeing. Or may not even have had a long term partner but were under threat from the authorities back home because they were gay.

If so the individual is having to find another gay wo/man to have sex with a film it to pass on to others. Are the UKBA therefore guilty of soliciting a single gay wo/man in order to procur a tape of his sexual exploits with another fe/male?

Also if the asylum seeker has recently lost a partner or had fled without them they may not be ready to have sex with someone else. We all go through such experiences when we lose someone we love. By forcing them to provide a sex tape, they may not be able to perform as they would with a long term partner. As a result such a tape may condemn them to deportation because the system has inaccurately determined their sexuality.

Stranraer 'Border' Agency Cutbacks

There is a certain cruel irony that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has announced the cutting in funding of three officers at Stranraer harbour. The reason of course is that the exact number of officers who carried out the dubious stop and search on me and Mícheál upon our return the other Sunday. Apparently the total number of seconded officers at Stranraer was three, so it looks like we had draw the attention of the full force of the law, on a Sunday!

In defence that his officers at the port where worth retaining, at what is a domestic port, the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Pat Shearer said that just the other weekend they had caught illegal immigrants. Not at the port itself but on the Motorway. MOTORWAY!!!

For those of you not familiar with Dumfries and Galloway I have included a map to show the nearest Motorway to the ports of Stranraer and Cairnryan.



To the North the closest point of the M77 is North of Kilmarnock and 64.4 miles or 103.6 km away from Stranraer (according to AA Route Calculator). To get there it is basically largely a single carriage road for the bulk of it. With crawler lanes on some of the hilly parts and going through a number of towns and villages to get there. The reckon it takes 1 hours 31 minutes to get there, it is also not in the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary jurisdiction being in Strathclyde.

To the East the road is easier, bypassing the bulk of towns and villages but the closest point of the M74 is at Lockerbie. 84.9 miles (136.6km) or 2 hrs 2 mins.

So you have to ask to ask what sort of defence having officers at an internal only ferry port is to catching illegal immigrants when they are actually caught almost at the other end of the constabulary's area of responsibility. Maybe they were too busy not answering our questions to deal with those coming off the ferry, which hadn't even docked yet.

Even those detected and apprehended on the Motorway were apparently held not with the support of the UKBA at all but with the normal constabulary resource. So the lack of more expensive, seconded officers to UKBA would appear to not have had a effect.

The Stranraer and Cairnryan routes will not be without UKBA agents however. They will merely be stations on the Belfast and Larne sides. The side closer to the UK only land boundary to another state, or where illegal immigrants are more likely to have entered and be seeking to travel elsewhere within the majority of the UK.

It was something that the Lib Dems campaigned on at the General Election that we do not know the number of illegal immigrants that are currently within our country. The estimates vary considerably. We're a set of islands therefore with the support of Ireland we could control the flow in, if we wanted. The issue of then tracking down those already inside is up to the various agencies involved. We'd stood on an amnesty for those here long term, as they are likely to have settled and become useful cogs in our economies wheels.

Of course the Tories want to pull out of agreements with the rest of EU that could help us control incomers to the EU as a whole. The benefits of throwing the borders out wider and the net further is spreading the cost, responsibilty and manpower.

Sped Up Deportation Also a Moral Outrage

There are two types of foreigners in the UK system economic migrants and asylum seekers. Let's make that clear. The latter of those types are the most vulnerable.

Therefore it is with outrage that I see that there is a leaked document that is looking at the voluntary right to leave or deportation at some point in the following 2 months of families seeking asylum. The no time being given element brings to mind the harrowing images from France earlier this week.

When I was campaigning in the general election I was campaigning for treating asylum seekers as human beings. Not looking up their children behind bars, allowing them to seek employment while their cases were heard. These are people that for whatever reason have fled their country to seek refuge. Yes, our immigration services then have to vet them to ensure that their is a genuine need and a right to stay. Although under Labour many of the most needy cases were not treated with egality.

I'd like to think we live in a liberal state that looks out for the most needy. Treating asylum seekers and their families as little more than unwanted cargo is not the way to go about thinks.

The Liberal Democrats campaigned to end child detention, not by being Iranian about it* and simply getting rid of anyone in that category. There have to be better alternatives that allow the process to run its full and fair course, which also does away with the need to detain children.

I think the UK Border Agency better think it out again.

* The Iranian way to ensure there are no gays in the country is the kill any they find.