Don't mention the Commonwealth

By Christopher Booker
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My son, returning from a business trip to India, was amazed how little coveragewas given here to the expulsion of 16,000 Indian doctors working in the NHS. InIndia this remarkable decision, based on the recent upholding of a High Court judgment of last November, has made front-page news for the past two weeks. It is widely interpreted as blatant and racist discrimination against Commonwealth citizens.

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Not so widely understood was why Mr Justice Stanley Burton had little choice,last year, in ordering the Indians' expulsion. He was merely enforcing theImmigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006, implementing EU directive2004/38. This made illegal a system set up by the 1971 Immigration Act, underwhich thousands of Commonwealth doctors every year could complete theirpost-graduate training in British hospitals, without a work permit, beforereturning to their own countries.

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The new law has meant intense hardship for thousands of Indians, many of whommade great sacrifices to get here, and more than 5,000 of whom have already beenforced to return home. One, Dr Imran Yousaf, who challenged the legality of theban with the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, committedsuicide shortly before this month's ruling.

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Among those who have spoken outstrongly against the judgment are the British Medical Association and Lyn Nazemi-Afshar, the UK Independence Party's candidate in Birmingham Ladywood, whodescribed it as "EU discrimination against the Queen's Commonwealth".

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The EU's gradual removal of the rights of citizens of the Commonwealth to workand live in the UK has long been a cause of surprise and distress in the Commonwealth. It was a few years back that Australian and New Zealand doctors and nurses wishing to work in the UK were startled to learn that, under anotherdirective, they now had to demonstrate, among other conditions, their ability tospeak English. To Poles, Latvians, Slovaks, Romanians and other EU citizens nosuch requirement applies.

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The latest restrictions follow those I reported last year by which manyCommonwealth and US citizens who had lived in Britain for many years, given"indefinite leave to remain", were told that, under new EU rules (even if they had married British citizens), this was now suspended.

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It is not generally grasped just how consistently, ever since Britain joined the European Community in 1973, the need for us to turn our back on the Commonwealthhas been regarded as a litmus test of our desire to become "good Europeans". But, of course, anyone who points this out is likely to be branded a"xenophobe", including no doubt Mrs Nazemi-Afshar.