Here’s another story I can’t decide whether to file under Nice Work If You Can Get It or You Couldn’t Make It Up.
The Home Office has advertised for a religious affairs manager to organise weddings for illegal migrants facing deportation.
It’s a full-time position based at an immigration removals centre near Oxford housing up 560 foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers, all of them due to be kicked out of the country.
Among the successful applicant’s main duties will be the requirement to ‘counsel residents who request marriage while in custody and make any necessary arrangements for the wedding’.
The manager will arrange for official escorts to accompany the happy couple to the ceremony, whether held in church, mosque or register office.
The Home Office has advertised for a religious affairs manager to organise weddings for illegal migrants facing deportation
(For some reason, I have visions of Norman Stanley Fletcher handcuffed to Mr Mackay on his way to hospital in Porridge.)
Presumably, they can also organise stag nights, hen parties and honeymoons – in the Cotswolds, perhaps. I hear Soho Farmhouse is popular at this time of year.
Mind you, formal receptions might be a bit more tricky, given that most hotels – such as The Bell in Epping – are already overflowing with migrants and closed to the public for the forseeable. Maybe they’d make a special exception for illegals awaiting deportation.
The wedding service will be available to all foreign detainees, including those convicted of committing crimes in Britain.
Even though they are scheduled for deportation, they are still allowed under human rights laws to take part in religious weddings, civil partnerships and same-sex marriages.
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man/transwoman/non-binary person and this woman/transman/insert as applicable in holy matrimony/civil partnership.
‘If anyone here present knows of any lawful impediment to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace.’
I wouldn’t bother. There’s no point objecting to the union on the grounds that it is only taking place so that one or other of the couple can avoid deportation.
Home Office guidance states: ‘Getting married or entering a civil partnership to gain an immigration advantage is not a legal impediment and, in any event, only a registrar may prevent a marriage/civil partnership on this ground.’
No doubt such ceremonies will immediately be followed by a string of appeals against deportation under the section of the yuman rites act guaranteeing a ‘family life’.
The Home Office manager will arrange for official escorts to accompany the happy couple to the ceremony, whether held in church, mosque or register office
If you can successfully appeal against removal because you own a cat, or your child doesn’t like the taste of Albanian chicken nuggets, the chances of ever being booted out because you’ve only got married to ‘circumvent UK immigration controls’ are less than zero.
We are all well aware that under international law we have an obligation to treat migrants humanely, even if they have arrived illegally on small boats.
The Home Office manager will arrange for official escorts to accompany the happy couple to the ceremony, whether held in church, mosque or register office
But when did it become a requirement to provide wedding planners, especially for those awaiting deportation?
Still, that might help explain the recent story about the Government spending tens of thousands of pounds teaching illegal migrants at a Heathrow detention centre a variety of skills, including hairdressing, flower arranging, cake decorating and balloon-craft.
Flower arranging, cake decorating and balloon-craft would certainly come in handy at a wedding. So would hairdressing, come to think of it. I’m surprised they didn’t throw in dressmaking, too, to run up frocks for the brides-to-be.
This week, the Government is due to begin its ‘one in, one out’ scheme. By the time that makes a difference, those illegals helped to tie the knot here will be great-grandparents, still living in Britain after being granted indefinite leave to remain.
Far from doing all it can to deter illegal immigrants, the Home Office seems to be going out of its way to make them as welcome as possible, even arranging for them to get married here.
And while the Government flatly refuses to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, they’ll continue pouring into Britain and strolling down the aisle with our official ‘blessing’.
Let’s hope they’re happy together. For the rest of us, not invited to the party and forced to live with the consequences of mass migration, it’s a Shotgun Wedding.
