If we are going to accept this lot, and I think we should for a variety of reasons, then it surely strengthens the case for accepting those who would value and deserve our help. Or perhaps not…
The Times has learnt that the Government has ignored personal appeals from senior army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for Iraqis whose loyal services have put their lives at risk.
One interpreter, who has worked with the Army since 2004 and wanted to start a new life in Britain after British Forces pull out was told by Downing Street that he would receive no special favours and to read a government website.
Brown’s change of position on Guantánamo Bay inmates hardly puts him on the moral high ground, if at the same time he is placing 91 allies in danger of torture and murder.
H[ealey’s] most incisive character-sketch comes when we discuss the very different mischief wrought by the SDP, and the anticlimactic career of that short-lived political poster-boy David Owen. “When he was born,” says Healey, “all the good fairies gave him every virtue: ‘You’ll be beautiful, you’ll be intelligent, you’ll have charm and charisma.’ And the bad fairy came along and tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘But you’ll be a shit.’ That was his trouble.”
Has anyone who has met Owen ever thought differently?
In the mid-1980s John Tomlinson was chosen as the rapporteur of the European Parliament to negotiate with Sweden over their future membership of the EU.
Tragically in 1986 the leader of the Swedish Social Democrats, Olaf Palme, was assassinated. As European Parliament rapporteur Tomlinson was invited to the state funeral. As a speaker of Swedish Tomlinson was popular with the Swedish Social Democratic Party and he was given a prominent seat for the ceremony. The official representative of the British state, David Owen, was given a seat several rows behind Tomlinson.
Owen and Tomlinson had a history as they had both served under Anthony Crosland in the Foreign Office in 1976, Owen being a junior minister and Tomlinson being a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State. Being made to sit behind Tomlinson, in a less prominent position, made Owen ask Tomlinson “What the fuck are you doing here in front of me?”
One of the more depressing aspects of New Labour has been its tendency to pander to the tabloids on asylum. But if this Times report is to be believed, this case is scandalous.
Britain has hired 91 Iraqi interpreters to work with the army in Basra and the risks are considerable.
Some will have known as friends and colleagues the victims on whom we report today, among them Haidr al-Mtury, murdered with a bullet to the head after having holes drilled through his hands and knees and acid poured on his face; and Abu Kiffah, forced to telephone his wife on his mobile phone so that she could hear his final moments.
As Britain withdraws, in contrast to other countries, no special asylum regulations have been put in place to ensure their safety.
Britain’s Iraqi interpreters must somehow reach British soil under their own steam if they want asylum, and then apply for it. Each case is then “judged on its merits”.
This may sound scrupulously fair on paper. In practice it requires those who have risked their lives for Britain’s mission in Iraq to apply to the British Embassy in Jordan for a visitor’s visa, knowing that nine in ten such applications have hitherto failed. If lucky, they must then take their chances with an asylum system that so far refuses to recognise their unique circumstances.
