Something of a Pity

A very definite sense of outrage here:

Thousands of foreigners who want to marry a British person and move to Britain will have to take an English language test, the Prime Minister announced yesterday.

Yes, I understand the reasoning, that there are lots of people who do move here who never do learn English properly (my mother spent years teaching those who wanted to try). But it does seem rather a naked power grab when the State says you can't marry someone simply because they don't speak English (and yes, insisting that they don't arrive in the UK is pretty much the same as saying that you can't marry them).

I do wonder though about how well this will marry with the Reform Treaty currently being railroaded through Parliament: there is a matter of the "respect for private and family life" thing in there and this seems pretty clearly to breach it.

But rather more than this there are people who not just do not speak English but cannot: the deaf and dumb for example. Is it going to be illegal for them to arrive on our shores as well? Now that would be something of a pity really. My own experience has been that if ever there were to be a second Mrs. Worstall that that would be a very useful option.

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