Organising the Fun

Theresa May has recently detailed some changes to visa regulations that could potentially lead to families being forced to leave the UK or couples being separated. You can read more details about it by clicking here. You can also read about how it could affect a real-life couple’s planned marriage at this blog here. Basically, couples and families who don’t earn enough to be considered worthwhile will be torn apart. There’s a personal account of some of the logistical issues here (worth a read).

I know, unbelievable, right?

So, here’s what you can do about it:

1) Sign this petition by clicking here. 

2) Share the article and the petition on all your social media platforms. 

3) Write to your MP by clicking here and putting in your postcode. (I have copied the email I sent to my MP below)

4) Email Theresa May in her capacity as Home Secretary and Women’s & Equalities Minister (lol, right?) at mayt@parliament.uk. You can also call on 020 7219 5206. Be sure to detail how this move jars with her role as an equalities minister.

Here’s a draft letter for you:

Dear [MP Name],

I am writing to ask that you publicly and politically oppose Theresa May’s new minimum income requirement for a British “sponsor” without children of up to £18,600 a year. I passionately believe that this is an unwarranted and illogical attack on UK citizens’ relationships based on poor maths, backwards ethics and arbitrary aims with regards to net migration.  

With so many people unable to find full-time work; countless citizens being unable to work through illness or disability; the average female salary being BELOW the original threshold set and many same-sex couples being unable to have their marriage recognised in the partner’s home country, this new move directly discriminates against countless people’s valid and positive desire to share their lives with the person they love (in the examples I mentioned that is young people, job seekers, the long-term ill, people with disabilities, women and LGBT people). I also feel the change is demonstrably racist, as it will most numerously affect BAME families. 

The right to live safely as a UK citizen in your home country with the person you choose to love and marry should not be denied to you based on an abstract aim to lower net migration numbers and a statistically unrealistic income threshold. Significant proportions of current and future families face the very real prospect of being broken up or put into danger by this move. I have close friends who will struggle to meet the threshold despite being graduates in full-time employment; they cannot move to the US (where one of them is from) because of DOMA - what on earth are they supposed to do? It’s heartbreaking - they literally face being torn apart by this. 

I hope that you will speak out in defence of all families who are threatened by these proposed changes, but especially women and LGBT, BAME, disabled, long-term ill and low-income constituents who face the inability to meet this new threshold through no fault of their own. 

I look forward to hearing your input on this issue. 

Yours sincerely,

[Name]