Welcome to Britain and Destitution

 

Last night I watched Panorama on Asylum Hotels.  Perhaps one of the reasons people feel so strongly about this issue is they feel the hotels provide a safety net which isn't there for the rest of society as since asylum seekers were banned from seeking work (by Tony Blair under the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act) the government has a responsibility to house them as they can't possibly fend for themselves.  In 2005 Tony tightened the rules again so that only after waiting 12 months for a decision could an asylum seeker apply for permission to work. And thus the "asylum hotel" was born... In 2010, an additional caveat was added restricting this to undertaking work specified on the government’s shortage occupation list. The list specifies particular professional roles that asylum seekers may apply to work in, such as radioactive waste management, sonograp, visual effects animation, or skilled classical ballet dancers who meet international standards.  That should keep them on their toes.  Unable to work because politicians decided it caused too much resentment and unable to not work because their hotels are picketed by Farage's friends, these people would probably be better off taking their chances in Iraq or Syria...? but it's too late now ...

Unfortunately, most of the asylum seekers in the documentary were not skilled classical ballet dancers who meet international standards, had remedial or non-existent English and after successfully navigating the channel in a dingy and Home Office beaurocracy to claim their precious indefinite leave to remain discovered that, of course, their local authorities had no automatic responsibility to find them Council accomodation and couldn't find them private rental accomodation either and, of course , under new rules they can't bring their family over either which was one reason many had chosen Britain over, say, Germany which still absorbs the majority... With the result that in 56 days they were turfed out their hotels onto pavements to sleep rough making it even harder to find a job and locking them into the homelessness trap.  You really have to wonder why on earth people come here. A minor civil servant described helping people through the cycle of grief this caused: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance of a cardboard box to sleep in.  Imagine imagining there's a safety net.  Still, welcome to Britain ... You're now one of us with an inalienable right to destitution.  Surely not even the workhouse was as cruel as this system?

I watched a bit of the Dennis Neilson documentary too which seemed to follow similar themes somehow ...with it's stories of young unskilled men who came to London to discover that the Councils had no real responsibility to house them and their future was sleeping in cardboard city, becoming rent boys or being picked up and murdered by the man behind the counter in the local Job Centre.  Only 6 or 7 of Neilson's victims were ever identified.... The rest... Apart from the Bullring cardboard city being turned into an IMAX cinema, we really seem to have gone nowhere as a society.