OSCAR'S SOAPBOX: September 2007

Once again we find ourselves in the Political Party conference season. This week finds the Liberal-Democrat Party on a charabanc trip to Brighton for their annual beano-by-the-sea, and I feel that it will be particularly memorable for producing one of the most ridiculous ideas I have heard in many years. Party spokesperson Nick Clegg has announced plans to allow illegal immigrants in Britain who have been here for ten years or more the opportunity to come clean and apply for citizenship. That of course is providing that they can prove that they have been in Britain for ten years, that they are fluent in the lingo, and that they have no criminal record!

Anybody entering a country illegally is committing a crime and is entitled to a free membership of the "Illegal League" with immediate effect, and anyone who has managed to stay under the radar for ten years is going to have committed a lot of other crimes along the way. If they have a genuine reason for being in this country they would have gone through the correct channels in the first instance instead of disappearing into the netherworld. An illegal immigrant isn't going to have any proof of how long they have been in the country because they don't exist here. The whole idea is totally ridiculous and unworkable.

Many of these immigrants will have been working illegally and not paying any tax or national insurance. Are they going to be immune from prosecution when resident nationals are being prosecuted for the same offence?

How many of these immigrants will have been claiming benefits they are not entitled to receive, under false identities? Will they be immune from prosecution for this, perhaps?

How many of these immigrants are currently driving round using false documentation and false identities? Is this another case of immunity from prosecution?

I have a much better idea than the one being put forward by the Liberal-Democrat Party. Why don't we round up the illegal immigrants that are clogging up this country and deport them, like any other country would do? Send them back where they came from, and while we're at it lets send the loony Lib-Dems with them. Nobody votes for them because policies like this one make them unelectable, so they won't be missed. It's time to get back control of our borders and control of our country from Brussels, maybe then we would have a chance of stemming the tide of illegal immigrants flowing into Britain. Then perhaps we wouldn't have the need for idiot proposals like an illegal immigrant amnesty.

N.B. Strangely enough, the one thing that hasn't been stipulated as a requirement to apply for citizenship is education, but when you consider that the average Lib-Dem wears jumpers with leather elbow patches, and slip-on shoes to avoid the embarrassing shoe lace problem maybe it comes as no surprise.

Lloyd-George must be turning in his grave.