I’ve long approved of a semi-referendum for the reintroduction of the death penalty, under which only people who vote in favour actually face it as a punishment option (this would work well, as “being a crazy violent idiot” is correlated both with “supporting the death penalty” and “committing murder”).
On the basis of this, do-as-you-would-be-done-by, principle, I’ve come up with an excellent new rule, inspired initially by my annoyance with visa requirements from assorted countries that have visa requirements solely to annoy people who make those countries’ nationals jump through annoying and stupid hoops to get visas [**].
Simply, it involves a plebiscite voting on “do you think all immigration from everywhere to everywhere else should be allowed, or are you a stupid bigot?”. Then, if you tick “stupid bigot”, you’re never allowed to go further than 10km from your hometown ever again, and if you don’t, then you’re allowed to roam the whole glorious world in which we live.
This would be applied on a local area basis, such that areas which have a majority of idiots are cut off (although they’d be allowed to have a separate referendum desperately begging for business travellers and tourists to be allowed to visit, if they liked). Meanwhile, anywhere that wasn’t in the “majority bigot” camp would be thoroughly visitable and liveable for all concerned, subject to “if you try and claim benefits or do crime before you get a passport then you can piss off and never come back” requirements.
Yes, there’s some satire in some of these provisions, but ultimately if they were adopted the general migration scheme would actually be noticeably less rubbish than the current one…
[*] in the Northern British sense of “card” meaning “person who thinks they’re a great wit”.
[**] let’s be realistic, India is lovely, but the reason a UK passport holder requires an advance-acquired visa to go to India isn’t that the Indians are terrified of being swamped by British immigrants…
I've always thought "You can take whatever drugs you like, provided you've got a job" would work. Sadly, I haven't thought about it any further than that single statement, so I now have to concede that it probably wouldn't.
let’s be realistic, India is lovely, but the reason a UK passport holder requires an advance-acquired visa to go to India isn’t that the Indians are terrified of being swamped by British immigrants…
Having spent some considerable time recently looking at how easy it is to inadvertantly bring not just yourself but your employer into the scope of Indian tax, I wouldn't ignore the strength of the sheer bloody-mindedness of Indian bureaucracy…
Let the stupids travel, but only with the right paperwork. Not only would this be a great revenue earner, it would really fuck them off. Especially if they need a London Transit Visa to use the M25. Stick 'em in a big detention centre next to Bluewater if they don't like it.