A charity headed by Labour MP Mohammad Sarwar has been raided by the Home Office for employing an illegal immigrant.Salman Siddiqui from Pakistan was taken to Dungavel detention centre from the shop of the Ucare Foundation on Victoria Road in Glasgow,which was set up and is chaired by the Glasgow Central MP. He was subsequently deported to Pakistan.
Sarwar claimed he was "duped" by Siddiqui to The Sun, but what was not reported was that he is the husband of key Sarwar ally Shaukat Butt's stepdaughter, a Glasgow Labour Party councillor. Questions now hang over whether Mr Sarwar was actually tricked, and had the charity carried out the full and proper checks when they clearly knew he was an immigrant. It is also understood that Siddiqui was paid in cash, negating the likelihood to fraudulent NI details being provided, and illegal in itself.
This latest controversy to hit Sarwar has parallels with the case of Baroness Scotland who was discovered employing an illegal immigrant in September 2009. The act can carry a fine of £10,000 or 12 months in prison.
The Ucare Foundation has close links to the Labour Party, with its fundraising events with the Pakistani community in Glasgow raising hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. Its last event at Glasgow Central Mosque was addressed by Secretary of State Jim Murphy and Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray.
Sarwar's charity was recently renamed from the Pakistan Foundation after adverse publicity surrounding its failure to lodge accounts withthe Charity Commission for three consecutive years. After being confronted with the problem last year, the PF produced all three years within two days.
Ucare has also suffered criticism for the perception that by focussing on building hospitals in his home town of Toba Tek Singh and placing people close to him in key positions there, it is a project aimed at bolstering the standing of Mr Sarwar and that of his family in the region.
(courtesy of a press release dropped into my inbox)
3 comments:
Wonder if MSM will pick this up after making big deal out of the Alex Salmond's recent brush with an illegal immigrant.
I wonder if this will make its way on to the blog of a certain Thomas Harris MP.
Just imagine the fun he'd have had (and by "fun he'd have had" I mean "dog whistle politics he'd have indulged in") if this was Osama Saeed.
Interesting stuff. Although I would like to know the provenance of it. We have all seen the smears and lies printed about Osama Saeed, and latterly Alex Salmond.
Immigration laws have changed and people who were previously OK to stay in the country are now apparently not. It's all very confusing, and of course screaming ''illegal immigrant' and associating it with an MP is bound to be popular with a section of the population. It is quite funny in that this stuff has been thrown at the SNP - but not by Sarwar.
Let's just check this out first before getting excited.
We don't need to descend to the level of Tom Harris.
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