Comment: How Europe stops Theresa May splitting up British families
This is not going be an easy thing for me to write. I am going to say nice things about Europe.
I do so with a heavy heart. The European project is a titanic act of vandalism against what this continent has to offer the world. When the referendum finally arrives, I will vote to leave the EU, whatever superficial deal David Cameron manages to stitch up behind closed doors. But I must confess that Europe is currently saving Brits from the injustices of their own government.
Last year, Theresa May took a step no other home secretary has taken. She instituted a base income required by British citizens before they could bring a non-EU spouse to the UK. If you fell in love with someone from outside the EU and happened to earn less than £18,600, that was just tough luck. You would have to live without them or live without your country. Either be romantic or patriotic, but you can't be both. It was as despicable a policy as the Home Office has ever passed and it has passed plenty of despicable policies. Bear in mind that foreigners with more than £1 million can come and go whenever they want. It is the governance of the banal and the cruel. May might as well have bought a white fur coat and dyed her hair like Cruella de Vil.
I reported the story of Andy, one man caught up in the tangled web of the UK Border Agency and May's barren imagination. His children were separated from both their parents for months on end. His Chinese wife was forced to sit and wait a world away as her boys grew older. And this from a government which claims to be pro-family.
Now it transpires there is a solution, provided by the European Economic Area (EEA). British people can go to Europe, be economically active, and then return to be treated like a European citizen. They then regain the rights taken away by their own government. They are able to live in their own country with their own wife or husband.
This should cause us to double take. For British citizens to enjoy the rights to be with their loved one, regardless of income, they must live overseas so that the British government is forced to treat them as Europeans.
It is called the Surinder Singh route and it is based on Directive 2004/38/ec of the European parliament, which basically consolidated lots of bits and pieces of law across the continent's institutions. But ultimately the route relies on one of the four pillars of the EEA: freedom of movement. The British person must go overseas to somewhere in the EEA. They must then register as self-employed, get paid employment, or do an educational course. They can then apply for their partner to join them before both returning to the UK.
It would be an honour if even one person in this tricky situation discovers this route by this piece, but it has been around for a while and is generally well understood by the people who find themselves separated from their loved one. If you want more information you can check in with Brit Cits or the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Both organisations do extraordinary work. They are unknown to the public and unrecognised by the media, but they offer support to British families trying to stay together. It's much more than all those shrill 'family values' MPs ever do.
The predictable response of Migration Watch was that this route is a gaping hole in the hull of May's anti-immigration ship. The fact they could interpret such developments in this manner demonstrates a catastrophic failure of sentiment. Their emotional faculties are poverty stricken.
So instead, let me offer this interpretation: It is heart-warming. These are not rich people. They are so not rich, in fact, that they do not even earn £18,600. They have fallen in love and married someone from another part of the world and they want to live together. To do so they are forced to leave their country and create a life in another. Ireland is the most popular choice, because of the language and the cultural similarities. But Italy, Spain, Germany and Portugal are also common. They stay there for about six months, waiting for the documentation of employment, or the official statement showing they are self-employed. These are stripped down people, giving up everything to be with the person they love.
Opponents of immigration will tell you that they are a parasite on the state, that they come to drain public resources. It's nonsense. European countries demand proof of medical insurance before an unemployed person or student can bring over family. And immigrants, no matter what the red tops tell you, are not a drain on the state. They claim fewer benefits than the domestic population. The free movement of people which the EEA allows brings some of the most talented, ambitious young people from the continent to our capital city. They would not do so if they lost the ability to bring their family.
Nevertheless, I'm informed that concerns over sham marriages have led the UK to team up with Germany, Austria and the Netherlands to see what further restrictions they can bring in against the Surinder Singh route. That is also nonsense. The way to deal with sham marriages is at the point when the marriage visa is issued – by thorough investigation of the relationship. Legitimate couples should not be penalised.
For years we have laboured under a poisonous immigration debate which ignores all the benefits and acknowledges only the problems. This is where it has left us: Europe providing the basic human standards our own government actively rejects. Hard working, low income Brits forced to pick between their country or their partner. Campaigners who are so obsessed with the arbitrary reduction of numbers they are incapable of seeing how cold they have become.
And me, having to admit there is something good about the European project. Horrible.
But there is a silver lining: the free movement rule isn't EU, it's EEA. That means we can get rid of the accursed union and still keep freedom of movement in the continent. I, and the roughly five other people in the UK who are pro-immigration and anti-EU, will be very pleased.
As a final note, you may notice that not many politicians mention that crucial fact. It is rather salient. Leaving the EU won't make a blind bit of difference to immigration. For that, you have to leave the single market. Remember that the next time a Ukip campaigner or eurosceptic Tory MP tells you about the EU and immigration. Free movement has got nothing to do with the EU.
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