UK visa shock

AS IT ANNOUNCED the end of decades of visa-free travel for TT citizens entering the UK, the British High Commission in Port of Spain said, “As a valued Commonwealth partner, Trinidad and Tobago remains an important part of the UK’s global community.”

Yet, the way this policy shift – for which, to be clear, there is no justification – was proclaimed suggests the opposite.

There was no advanced notice. There was no real transitionary period. As soon as the announcement was made on March 12, it took effect, as though some clear and present danger was posed by the people of this country.

British High Commissioner to TT Jon Dean assured those with prior bookings may travel. But the six-week “transition window” reflects the hasty nature of the change.

The British government’s reasons for slapping TT travellers with this control are as shambolic as the measure is abrupt.

According to Mr Dean, there has been “a significant increase” in the number of “unjustified asylum applications.”

At the same time, it is “the actions of a small minority” that forced UK ministers to act.

This, even though the figures involved are seemingly in the low hundreds, applications can only be described as “unjustified” after lengthy processes of review, and by no stretch of the imagination is it fair to blanket a whole group of people for the purported actions of a few.

The truth is, this is not about border security. It is about politics.

The Labour government is facing the rise of anti-immigrant, right-wing sentiment both inside the UK and outside: across the English Channel in the EU and across the Atlantic in Donald Trump’s America. Its policy reorientation is about being tough on a certain kind of immigrant.

TT is merely an easy target.

We allow UK nationals to come here with no restrictions. Not even US citizens, who are limited to 90 days, have this privilege.

The UK knows small Caribbean islands dependent on tourism cannot afford to retaliate.

Just as Keir Starmer, last October, dismissed Keith Rowley and Caricom’s wish to discuss reparations at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa with little hesitation, so too has his government wrought this change. Mr Starmer has Mr Trump to worry about and appease.

Thus, for the sake of playing to the home gallery, the entirety of this small but great nation has been painted with one broad brush by UK officials.

In their telling, and in a perverse rewriting of history, we are not a former colony that went on to appear in the World Cup, win Olympic medals, receive Nobel Prizes and even contribute to their nation.

We are merely a hazardous source of people intent on raiding the UK Treasury.