Colin BrazierHost
So it seemed strange a few weeks ago when the Reform Party's Robert Jenrick found himself the victim of a TV sting operation.

The MP was secretly filmed describing Afghanistan as, quote, "shit." This seemed to be held up as a damning indiscretion.

But who in their right mind who spent any time in Afghanistan could quibble with such an adjective? Certainly not the thousands of British soldiers who were deployed there, many of whom fought with distinction alongside often unreliable allies.

Certainly not the women of today's Afghanistan who now the Taliban are back in charge, find themselves living under a regime which considers the seventh century a high point of societal evolution.


As the Spectator magazine pointed out this year following a string of attacks by Afghan migrants, it is hard to sustain the argument that all migrants are equally welcome to British hospitality when men arriving here from Afghanistan are twenty-two times more likely to commit sex crimes than the natives.

And yet this week, Labor announced that it was rolling out the red carpet for Afghans.

Under pressure from left-wingers, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood singled out refugees from Afghanistan as she revived plans that create a legal route to British citizenship for asylum seekers.

It would mean the ability to apply for a British passport within five years of arriving.

Full access to benefits, council housing, healthcare, state pension with no expectation of beneficiaries paying more into the system than they get out of it.

One recent study by Dutch academics found that each migrant costs taxpayers about four hundred thousand pounds.

Our own Home Office in June this year published an estimate of the lifetime fiscal cost of migrants who moved to Britain under the ECHR's right to family life.

Our officials put the figure at an eerily precise one hundred and forty-one thousand pounds, a far lower figure than the Dutch study, but still a long way from the fairy stories we used to tell ourselves that migration could only be an unalloyed economic boon for UK PLC.

In the press this week, sources at the Home Office sought to downplay any idea that Shabana Mahmood's U-turn on legal migration would involve big numbers.

This is the same Home Office which in 2003 predicted the number of Eastern European migrants who would come to Britain once their countries had joined the EU would be between five and thirteen thousand.

The Home Office has also said that the resettlement scheme will be for Afghan women rather than Afghan men who it seems even Labor now realizes might not always be welcomed with open arms.

But as Kemi Badenoch tweeted this week, Labor saying they'll only take Afghan women is nonsense.

The right to family life means they can bring all the men in their family over.

A Palestinian woman recently brought her extended family of seventeen to the UK.

These new legal migrants will be sent to Britain by the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR.

So it seemed strange a few weeks ago when the Reform Party's Robert Jenrick found himself the victim of a TV sting operation.

The MP was secretly filmed describing Afghanistan as, quote, "shit." This seemed to be held up as a damning indiscretion.

But who in their right mind who spent any time in Afghanistan could quibble with such an adjective? Certainly not the thousands of British soldiers who were deployed there, many of whom fought with distinction alongside often unreliable allies.

Certainly not the women of today's Afghanistan who now the Taliban are back in charge, find themselves living under a regime which considers the seventh century a high point of societal evolution.


As the Spectator magazine pointed out this year following a string of attacks by Afghan migrants, it is hard to sustain the argument that all migrants are equally welcome to British hospitality when men arriving here from Afghanistan are twenty-two times more likely to commit sex crimes than the natives.

And yet this week, Labor announced that it was rolling out the red carpet for Afghans.

Under pressure from left-wingers, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood singled out refugees from Afghanistan as she revived plans that create a legal route to British citizenship for asylum seekers.

It would mean the ability to apply for a British passport within five years of arriving.

Full access to benefits, council housing, healthcare, state pension with no expectation of beneficiaries paying more into the system than they get out of it.

One recent study by Dutch academics found that each migrant costs taxpayers about four hundred thousand pounds.

Our own Home Office in June this year published an estimate of the lifetime fiscal cost of migrants who moved to Britain under the ECHR's right to family life.

Our officials put the figure at an eerily precise one hundred and forty-one thousand pounds, a far lower figure than the Dutch study, but still a long way from the fairy stories we used to tell ourselves that migration could only be an unalloyed economic boon for UK PLC.

In the press this week, sources at the Home Office sought to downplay any idea that Shabana Mahmood's U-turn on legal migration would involve big numbers.

This is the same Home Office which in 2003 predicted the number of Eastern European migrants who would come to Britain once their countries had joined the EU would be between five and thirteen thousand.

The Home Office has also said that the resettlement scheme will be for Afghan women rather than Afghan men who it seems even Labor now realizes might not always be welcomed with open arms.

But as Kemi Badenoch tweeted this week, Labor saying they'll only take Afghan women is nonsense.

The right to family life means they can bring all the men in their family over.

A Palestinian woman recently brought her extended family of seventeen to the UK.

These new legal migrants will be sent to Britain by the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR.
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