Britain is reported to have invented a new form of discrimination- poorism. According the British newspaper, The Guardian, Britain’s Home Office is so-anti-poor that it refused grandparents of a Zimbabwean child killed in a car accident permission to attend her funeral just because they were too poor and might not return to Zimbabwe. This was not an isolated case. A decade ago it also refused a Sri Lankan woman permission to enter the UK to donate a kidney to her daughter-in-law who had a renal failure. The Home Office refused to grant visas to Grace and Stanley Bwanya, the grandparents of Andrea Gada, who was killed in a car accident just before Christmas so that they could attend her funeral. They were refused visas for three reasons – they had not previously travelled out of Zimbabwe, they could not demonstrate a regular income, and there was a danger they would abscond. Andrea’s parents, Wellington and Charity Gada, said the Home Office refused to budge even after the grandparents offered to wear electronic tags and report regularly to a police station during their stay. “Wealthy people from overseas find it much easier to visit or settle in the UK. If you’ve got a spare £2m you can come here and invest it. If you’re richer still, with a spare £10m up your sleeve you can apply to settle here after just two years. The same opportunity is not afforded to the less wealthy even if they are keen to work hard, pay taxes and contribute to society,” The Guardian said.
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