The present government has shown contempt towards our community and threatens our livelihoods by pushing through a number of immigration law changes that, if implemented fully, will profoundly affect the future of not only the Chinese community, but every ethnic community in the United Kingdom.

One of the rule changes, increasing the qualifying settlement period from 4 to 5 years, affects an estimated 400,000 work permit holders, highly skilled migrants, and their families who are ALREADY in the UK.

We are not protesting against the government's right to change the law. We are protesting against the way they have introduced these changes. They have not consulted the Chinese community nor have they given adequate notice for people to alter their future plans.

Our Objectives

We are not fighting the government, we are simply asking them to listen to us and we are offering to work with them so we can get a measure of fairness for those people who have been affected by this change. We are working for the good of you, your friends and family, the Chinese community and for the good of Britain.

We have worked with the government before as a result of campaigning for our community. In November last year, every migrant on limited leave was faced with the prospect of having their appeal rights taken away. This would have been catastrophic to the normal operations of our businesses and the education of our young. This is why we campaigned to keep appeal rights in the new Immigration and Asylum Act.

Our Campaign

Campaigning works! In helping lend their voices to the campaign, the Chinese community rose up, spoke with one voice and the government listened. As a result, Appeal rights are preserved and the government are consulting with the Chinese community with regards to the new tiered system of entry into the UK.

Campaigning can work again! We are doing nothing more than exercising our legitimate democratic rights to voice our concerns against the government's change of rules and the way in which they have done it.

These change to the rules were imposed by the government and can be withdrawn by the government with equal ease. We are not asking for the rules to be changed back but to get justice for those people who are unfairly and unreasonably affected.

The consequences of doing nothing

If we allow the government to make changes without proper consultation or notice, then the government will simply continue to make changes on this basis. We will be allowing the government to do whatever they want to us and when we finally do say something, the government will simply point back to all the times we haven't objected and say that they have done it this way before and no one has complained.

The next time the government make a change, it could be you who is affected. Would you be content with being part of a silent minority then?

We have an opportunity now to make our collective voices heard and when we do, the government will listen. We have a chance to participate in the political process and raise our concerns at measures that affect our community, our friends and family, and our businesses.

How do we help ourselves?

The answer is simple. We are looking to gather 10,000 petitions to present to Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. We want to raise the government's awareness of our community and our concerns at how the government is passing laws with no notice and no consultation with the people and communities involved.

All we need therefore is your signature on the petition showing your concern at the way the government has acted. The more signatures we gather, the louder our voice will be and the government will have to listen again. Your signature and support, showing that the Chinese community can unite and speak together, is worth more to us than any amount of money.

Please sign our petition and get as many people to sign it and help us to help you, to help all of us and to help the government see the error of their ways.

What are we doing about it?

Petition Signing in Chinatown London on Sunday 16 July 2006 and Sunday 23 July 2006

Volunteers from the North London Chinese Association (http://www.nlca.org.uk/) and other interest groups will be in Chinatown on Sunday 16 July 2006 and Sunday 23 July 2006 to gather signatures for the petition to Downing Street.

On both days, volunteers will be on the streets from 1pm – 4pm.

We will also be extremely interested to gather cases of hardship suffered by people and we will have volunteers who will be happy to take down details on the day.

By taking down hardship cases, we will be able to compile a dossier on the effects of the government's change of the rules to demonstrate to them that there are people who are suffering as a result of these unjust and unreasonable changes.

Venue: London Chinatown, near the Chinese Pagoda

Our volunteers will be delighted to see you on the day. Thank you for your support.

After these two events, representatives from the Chinese, Bangladeshi and other ethnic communities and highly skilled migrants will be presenting the petitions that we have collected over the months to Downing St on Monday 24th July.

See also: http://www.vbsi.org.uk/