The Forgotten Army

Is the British Government deliberately courting controversy? Do they know that they have lost the next election, even though it is months before the nomination papers are submitted?

Yesterday they were proved to be inept, or should that be lying, with their calculations on the speed of the economic recovery, and then another bombshell!

They let down, snubbed, call it what you will, the Gurkhas, or to be precise, the entire British armed forces.

The message that the Home Office sent out was, ‘Thanks for serving the Country pal, but now that you have been demobbed, you’re on your own.’

How can a person, for all intents and purposes, be treated as if he were British for fifteen years, and then overnight, as soon as he has been served his demob papers, become an alien?

The Government’s argument is that, if we let the ex-Gurkhas stay in the country, by the time they are joined here by their families, Britain’s population will swell by 100,000.

So what? If the Gurkhas weren’t available to fight for us in the Pacific in WWII, leaving the Allied troops to concentrate on Europe, our population may well have swelled by 82,000,000, all of them German.

The Government’s cop out is that a Gurkha who was demobbed before 1997 can stay if he can meet one of the following criteria:

• Three years continuous residence in the UK during or after service

• Close family in the UK

• A bravery award of level one to three

• Service of 20 years or more in the Gurkha brigade

• Chronic or long-term medical condition caused or aggravated by service

This really means, if you are a Gurkha officer, you are more than welcome to stay, if you are one of the other ranks, tough!

As the plaque on the Gurkha Memorial says:

THE GURKHA

SOLDIER

Bravest of the brave,

most generous of the generous,

never had country

more faithful friends

than you.

Perhaps there should have been a final line that reads, “But only when it suits us”?

On behalf of British people everywhere, I apologise to the entire Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal for the treachery of the Government of Great Britain.

Make This A Land Fit For Real Heroes!

Today, Gurkhas and ex-Gurkhas who retired before 1997, those Nepalese soldiers that are everything a super-hero should be, courageous, brave, loyal and law abiding, will find out if the Government are going to grant them the right to settle in the UK.

How much discussion and paper shuffling in Whitehall did it need to come to a decision? This was a no-brainer, surely. Even the High Court told the Home Secretary in September last year that the immigration laws denying them the right to settle were unlawful.

This regiment has fought for Kings and Queens and Country for nearly two hundred years. 45,000 of them have died over those years. They have picked up every bravery award going, from the Victoria Cross, down.

Even though the British Government has defecated on them from a great height, not only by denying the right to settle in the UK, but by awarding them less than half of a British regular army soldier’s pension when they retire, back in Nepal they are still clamouring to join this noble regiment.

How do they feel when they see the Government welcome immigrants, from countries that these men have fought and died against, with open arms, people that have contributed absolutely nothing to this country, people that are only here to take advantage of our lax benefits system, when the Gurkhas are denied the same right.

Jaqui Smith, take a leaf out of the Gurkhas book and be loyal too.

All they asking for is your signature on that piece of paper!