British Obama? Er...., Not Quite!

The conservative MP for Windsor, Adam Afriye, on Saturday made a move that many saw as another bid for the leadership position of the conservative party.

Adam Afriyie is the first mixed-raced conservative MP ever. He was born to an English mother and a Ghanaian father. He grew up in a Council estate in Peckham.

Adam Afriye had been accused earlier in the year of trying to launch a leadership bid, which never really took off but he denied it.

He had been quiet for a while until Saturday when he surprised everybody by suggesting that the proposed referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU should be brought forward before the 2015 general elections because he did not trust that David Cameron would honour his word and hold the referendum as promised in 2017.

David Cameron had promised to hold a referendum in 2017 to determine if Britons want the UK to remain in the UK but that is if he wins the election in 2015 and remain Prime Minister in 2017.

There is already a bill in parliament to make the 2017 referendum law. Adam was seeking to amend the bill.

The opposition he received from Euro sceptic members of his party, who are in support of the referendum, was so severe that pro-EU MPs, who are opposed to the idea of Britain leaving the EU, did not even receive any floor space to comment on his ill-advised move.

What is particularly galling about Afriyie’s leadership bid being disguised as a patriotic move is that should Britain withdraw from the EU, the immigration status of thousands if not tens of thousands of British residents born outside the EU could be thrown into jeopardy if legislation is not enacted to take care of the situation. 

Given the Tories attitude towards immigration, enacting a new law to cater for those affected will be way below their priority list.

It’s a shame that the son of a Ghanaian immigrant would propose a move that could jeopardise the immigration status of thousands of other immigrants, a number of whom could be in the same situation his father was many years ago, because of an ambitious leadership bid that was never going to succeed in the first place.