Neil Griffiths: Fight must continue for the rights of Gurkhas

Published on Thursday 30 April 2009 08:58

IN recent years I've completed seven 200-mile trans-Scotland marches with serving Gurkhas to raise funds for their impoverished forebears who receive no pension from those they served so faithfully, the British. We raised £800,000.

The sum's enormous size tells me all I need to know about Scotland's respect and fondness for the wee men from the high Himalayas. The huge fury generated by last week's Home Office announcement that nearly all Gurkhas who retired before 1997 have no right to live in the UK has confirmed it.

The Home Office claims these Gurkhas do not have sufficient links with Britain to be entitled to stay here. Let's get this right: Gurkhas who have served the Crown, put their lives at risk to fight for our liberty and safety, and won 13 VCs in the process, are not welcome in the UK if they left the Army before 1997?

How can you give the same group of people different rights because of a date? The Government claims that it was in 1997 that the Brigade of Gurkhas moved from Hong Kong as if this was of mystic importance, whereas Gurkhas have been based at Church Crookham since the 1960s.

Last year, a High Court ruled that preventing Gurkhas from staying in the UK was illegal. The minister last week was at his weakest trying to explain how his department had overturned the law of the land. There was a theoretical possibility, he warned, that 100,000 Gurkhas and dependents could settle here. Perhaps he hadn't noticed that nearly all of Europe has a theoretical right to live here too.

Meanwhile, fundamentalists such as Abu Qatada are free to stay, free to claim benefits and free to mouth their poison at our whole way of life. Even by the British government's traditional standards, it's an utter disgrace.

I have an e-mail from Joanna Lumley who says the campaign for equal rights for all Gurkhas, on par with British Army troops, will continue. A former Gurkha had written to her saying he has no fear any more as he knows the hearts of the British people will not let him down.

&#149 Neil Griffiths, Royal British Legion Scotland