The Doors Of Contention

RESHMABEN has joined her husband after four years of a separation neither wanted. She married Shashikant Ramji Padhiar, a factory worker in south London, in Porbander in Gujarat four years ago. And there she remained, as the immigration officials at the British consulate in Mumbai did not give her the visa to come to her husband's home in London. They had been separated not by personal differences but by a British law, the Primary Purpose Rule that required a spouse abroad to prove that the primary purpose of a marriage was marriage and not migration.

The new Labour government, under Tony Blair, has now scrapped that rule. The Conservatives are better for India, Labour for Indians in Britain. Years of pleading couldn't persuade the Tories to drop that rule. And so, years of struggle in court ended suddenly, and happily, for Reshma-ben. C.J. Hopkinson, adjudicator, passed an order on September 12 declaring he was "conceding the appeal in view of the abolition of the Primary Purpose Rule". R. Ralph, a representative of the Home Office, "also conceded the intention of the parties to live permanently together". Like Reshmaben many thousands of Indian spouses can fly in now to join their partners settled in Britain, free finally from one of the most humiliating laws enforced by Britain.

"Following recent changes in the immigration rules, the decision has been reviewed and it has been decided that entry clearance will now be issued," says a typical letter that the Immigration and Naturalisation Department has begun to hand out. "The Entry Clearance Office will contact the applicant shortly to arrange for this." The abolition of the Primary Purpose Rule has opened British doors wide to new migration. That will hardly be welcomed by the hosts. New migration is political dynamite in this country. Few issues raise the hackles of the British the way immigration does. That many thousands will migrate now to join their spouses is potentially issue enough. But it is the thousands—some in the immigration business say hundreds of thousands—of the yet unmarried who are liable to bring in partners from back home that is becoming the real worry for political figures in Britain.

India and Pakistan promise to become the busiest suppliers of new wives and husbands. More than 4,000 wives who had been waiting in India can head for Britain straightaway. So can about 2,600 husbands. "Many of our clients given leave to enter are trying to come in before Diwali," says solicitor Hitesh Patel. The marriages took place long ago, now the homecoming away from home is all set to take place.

The British government is at pains not to say how many will come in with the end of this rule. The Home Office promised the information for a week, then referred to the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office referred back to the Home Office, and then said it is not possible to know. But it is possible, and they know. In 1995, 10,890 applicants were turned down under the Primary Purpose Rule. Over the past five years, 50,000 could have been turned away by that rule, and they can all now come to Britain. It is easy to see why officials will not speak now. "Labour lets in 50,000 migrants"—headlines like that or juicier tabloid renderings can rock Tony Blair's sailing boat.

Says former Tory MP Nicholas Budgen: "If about 11,000 are turned down at the point of entry, how many are put off applying because they know of the rule? If more spouses are allowed in after the relaxation of the Primary Purpose Rule, how many dependents will follow them?"

After their dismal showing at the general elections earlier this year, the Tories badly need a talking point, and any increase in immigration can give them much to talk about. They have always wanted to look hard on immigration to help their popularity. That needs more help now than it has for years. At the Conservative Party conference last year, about 80 of the 200 resolutions sent by local Conservative associations related to squeezing migration, both legal and illegal.

It took years of campaigning to give British passports to about 5,000 people in Hong Kong who already had special British overseas passports. And the then home secretary, Michael Howard, even assured the House of Commons that most of them would not take flight to Britain after the handover to China. But now 50,000 spouses have begun to fly in to settle and raise families.

And this is only a fraction of the real migration that could follow. "We could be talking 100,000 migrants a year," says a former advisor to the Conservative government on immigration matters. He explains why: "It's the Patels, the Punjabis and the Pakistanis. There is now no bar on marrying and bringing your spouse back to Britain. All you need to show now is that you have sufficient accommodation to house them and sufficient funds to support them, and then show you are married for a year after arrival." The Pakistanis, he points out, can take particular advantage of the abolition of the rule to bring in their families to join them. "Marriage among cousins is legitimate among most Pakistani families," the

former advisor says. "So if a family wants to bring in relatives to join them, they can arrange a marriage and expand their family. In some cases the husband and wife might not even sleep together, and after a year they can easily divorce." The advisor had pleaded against this rule, but admits: "Frankly, I never expected they would actually do it." However, Shantoo Ruparell, a leading immigration solicitor, says "the abolition of the Primary Purpose Rule was long overdue". This was a rule that "made widows and widowers out of spouses", he claims. "But the Primary Purpose Rule had been brought in because there were instances where the system was abused, and there were many marriages of convenience." Now people will have to be careful "so that this sort of thing does not recur and the government brings that rule or something like that back on to the statute book". A tough ask, indeed, given the numbers keen to find work in Britain.