Double standards for double jabbed does not help US Brits
EACH year the United States government receives hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money from Brits.
More than 680,000 pay into the system to help support the country. Yet, despite this, their adopted country is treating them – and millions of other foreign nationals – as second-class citizens.
This was no more so apparent than while watching Brit Jonathan Ferro speak about the recent loss of his father.
The Bloomberg TV presenter had US transport secretary Pete Buttigieg on his show, Bloomberg Surveillance. During the interview, he grilled the politician over why
Covid travel restrictions “with no scientific rationale” were being enforced on vaccinated foreign nationals but not Americans.
Double-jabbed US citizens can currently travel to the UK and back, but visa-holding Brits cannot enter the States directly unless they have a green card or are the immediate family of an American.
They are required to quarantine in a third country, frequently Mexico.
Buttigieg, who ran for the Democratic nomination before supporting Biden, argued that it was “complex” and said they needed to be cautious.
It was then that Ferro took the politician apart. “You didn’t have to watch your father’s funeral down the screen of an iPhone,” he said. “I did. Because of your policies.”
He went on: “Regardless of anything you say for the next couple of minutes, it’s not going to justify it.
“What I need to understand from you as a policymaker, is why thousands of people who live in this country legally, and pay taxes, cannot go home to see loved ones and return directly. And why you still repeat the same line again and again and again. It doesn’t make it true. You do not have a scientific rationale for this. You cannot back it up with science, sir.”
Currently visa holders are able to reunite with their families back home but are barred from direct reentry to the States, thus risking their livelihoods, while Americans are allowed to travel to the UK.
Even more so from Monday, when they will no longer have to quarantine on arrival in the UK – although they will be required to take tests – and return without a problem. It is a disgrace. And it does not affect just the 684,000 Brits living in the States but their family members who they have not seen for 18 months, if not more.
That a country is happy to take the taxes from people, use their money to help vaccinate their nation but then treat them in this manner, is shameful.
These people, who all take pandemic safety seriously, are not the same as the millions who travel to the States for a holiday each year.
Mass tourism is understandably on hold. Needing to see your loved ones is not tourism.
For those who live and work here, who are vaccinated just like all those jabbed Americans, the double standard is unforgivable. The UK does not do the same to Britishbased Americans.
It’s ironic that before being made president, Joe Biden tweeted: “Banning all travel from Europe – or any other part of the world – will not stop the coronavirus.”
Land of the free? Not if you’re a taxpaying, double-vaccinated Brit it’s not.
SO, Sir Richard Branson boldly went where no tycoon had gone before to win the ‘billionaire space race’.
The Brit ensured England claimed at least one victory on Sunday, beating the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, into orbit by just nine days and opening up the final frontier to
tourism. Following his successful mission, the Virgin boss can now add space to the list of destinations his companies offer.
But, at £180,000 each for a trip onboard his VSS Unity, thrill-seekers will need to start saving.
Now Sir Richard has said building a hotel “off the moon” is something he has “always dreamt of”. Off the moon? Aren’t all hotels off it already? Either way, even if successful, who’d want to check in to it. It won’t have any atmosphere.