Scarcely believable. This is the position as I write. Some time ago the Labour Party pushed through a change to the immigration procedures making it a criminal offence for anyone employing an illegal immigrant not to have done the necessary enquiry into the employee's status and not to have kept a copy of the documentation supplied. It was a typical Labour law designed to put further burden on small private sector companies. Little did they think it would one day snare one of their own.
The minister responsible for pushing this legislation through Parliament was Baroness Scotland who is now Attorney General, the chief legal adviser to the Government.
It turns out that Lady Scotland herself employed an illegal immigrant without keeping copies of the documents and has now been fined £5,000 by the UK Border Agency. Gordon Brown's office says it was not intentional and she can stay in her job.
The whole point of this legislation was that you can still be guilty without it being intentional: a further example of being guilty until proven innocent, a concept which has been creeping into our legal system over the last decade or so.
It is quite impossible for the Attorney General to stay in her job now, indeed she should have resigned days ago. Otherwise it is a case of making laws which everyone has to obey except the Party Apparatchiks.
She must go, and go immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment