Loophole for "Life of Luxury"

A woman of Pakistani origin, who lives in Manchester, has written a book called Belonging. She told BBC Radio 4's Midweek today that when she was 13 she was taken to Pakistan to marry a man who wanted to come to the UK and "live a life of luxury".
He (and others like him) would not even think of being able to do this if the law were changed - as promised by the Conservatives in 1979 - to end the concession that allows foreign men to live in the UK through marriage.
The Conservatives' policy provoked the intervention of the Council of Europe. I anticipated that, and complained to the European Commission of Human Rights on 10 June 1977 about foreign men being allowed to occupy the UK in this way "... even though British men often cannot reside in foreign and Commonwealth countries as of right if they marry local women."
The issue - as I made clear to the ECHR - is not to enable British men to live abroad through marriage, but to prevent the unhappiness caused to many native British men by foreign and Commonwealth men exploiting this loophole.
This is exactly the sort of complaint the ECHR was established to redress.
The ECHR would not investigate my complaint. Instead, it determined (May 1982) in favour of three women whose husbands were not allowed to live in the UK.

It's a Sham(e)!

According to BBC Radio 4's Law in Action yesterday, sham marriages are on the increase in Britain. This, we were told, is because the Government's attempts to reduce them are said to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
The last thing the Council of Europe should do is facilitate migration by people from non-member states to member states. This is because it was set up in response to activities in Nazi Germany.
We were told that the article in the European Convention that guarantees everyone's right to marry was there because of restrictive practices concerning Jews and other Germans. In other words, problems within a country.
There is nothing in the European Convention to facilitate the occupation of a member state by people from non-member states.
If a foreign (non-member state) man wants to marry a European woman they can live in his country. They can get married in his country. If they choose to marry in Europe there is no obstacle to their then going back to his country to live.
Therefore it is a misinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to cite it as being violated if they cannot live permanently in a member state.
My complaint to the European Commission of Human Rights of 10 June 1977 about foreign and Commonwealth men being allowed to live and work in the UK through marriage while I (and other Englishmen) often cannot live and work in their countries through marriage was, I believe, exactly the sort of complaint it was established to investigate. But it didn't, on the grounds that I had not been the victim of a decision by a government body.