Irene Clennell part 2: more of your Q&As

Hello again everyone. The last Q&A about this case well and truly went viral when it was shared a lot on social media, so I feel I simply had to do a part 2 to the Q&As. I didn't quite know what the response would be when I first started writing about this, I didn't know how interested my readers would be in this case but the more I wrote about it, the more interesting it go because there are so many layers to it. I suspect that many people were confused or frustrated by what they read in the press, so they were looking for an alternative point of view on the issue. So I am very glad I was able to step in and shed some light on the issue. So let's press on with some more questions about the case.

Q: Why is Irene Clennell's case so interesting then?

A: If this was just about a woman who got deported because she violated the terms of her visa, it's no big deal - this happens all the time and there's not that much public sympathy for such cases. However, once you move beyond the technical details of her visa problems, you have the sister-in-law Angela Clennell who has raised over £53,000 on GoFundMe to help her sister but Angela has lied about how long Irene Clennell has lived in the UK on that website. This is rather disturbing - but the public who are donating don't seem to mind/care about the details of the case because the government is currently so unpopular that people are willing to believe any story that makes them look like the enemy of the people. You then have several versions of the story out there: some more respectable journalists from the BBC have verified their facts, whilst others like Buzzfeed, the Sun and the Independent reported the lies that Angela and Irene have said to them as if they were facts. Now that's shockingly bad journalism and with Trump coining the phrase 'fake news' for the last few months, well - he may be right this time. So on top of the case of the deported woman, you have a possible case of fraud, a dumb British public who desperately looking for confirmation bias online and an example of 'fake news' generated because some lazy journalists are just so shit at their jobs. (Trump 1 : Buzzfeed 0) Those many different facets to the story makes it interesting - Irene Clennell herself isn't that interesting, it is what the case reveals about the British public and the state of the media that is the story here.

Q: Irene Clennell had been unsuccessful with her previous visa applications - she had struggled to get back into the UK since her ILTR (indefinite leave to remain) lapsed in 1994 when she was in Singapore. Her struggle to get back into the UK has been going on for a long time. Why is she only going public like that now? Why hasn't she tried talking to the press the last few times? What's different about this time that made her want to go publict?

A: Good question. There are a number of reasons why she didn't go public quite this way back in the 1990s or even the 2000s - social media played a big part in this story. Sure in the 1990s and 2000s she could have tried to talk to journalists from newspapers in the UK about her situation but was it news worthy? Singaporean woman messes up her visa situation and gets denied a visa because she violated the rules of her ILTR. I know we have some terrible newspapers in the UK but even that isn't newsworthy. It was with social media that Angela Clennell could present a case whereby an innocent grandmother was being deported despite having lived in the UK for so many years - now that's the kind of click bait that gets shared on social media and certainly, there are enough people out there in the UK today who are so angry with the government they automatically give in to confirmation bias. Without modern social media, this wouldn't have been possible - the story gained momentum first on social media before Buzzfeed picked up on it and then the other newspapers than joined in.  All this wouldn't have been possible ten years ago without modern social media. Irene Clennell was going to be deported regardless, so this was a "what have I got to lose" last ditch effort. Certainly the concept of crowdfunding and pages like GoFundMe just didn't exist in the 1990s and 2000s.

Why didn't Irene speak up years ago?

Q: Clearly it has generated a lot of public attention, with journalists lining up to interview Irene and Angela Clennell even days after the deportation. Do you think that this kind of attention will help her case now that she will appeal?

Going public like that does have its risks, ultimately it is up to someone quite senior in the Home Office to decide on Irene Clennell's final appeal. If that appeal fails, she will be banned from the UK for ten years and then in 2027 (she'll be 63 then), she could try to apply for a visa again but by then, any chance of getting a visa is so slim it would be virtually impossible. Her family probably hopes that the media attention along with public sympathy would help her case, but it may have a totally opposite effect. You see, both Angela and Irene told so many lies to the media from changing the number of years that Irene has actually lived in the UK to raise over £52,000 from the public by going public with a story riddled with lies (and that's not white lies, not if you're obtaining that much money on the basis of the story you have presented). But more to the point, the Home Office wouldn't want to encourage others to do the same thing: don't have a strong case? No problem. Just whip the public up into a hysteria based on lies and half-truths about the case and have the public baying for blood. The Home Office cannot issue a statement like, "this dishonest woman has been lying to you, here are the facts of the case." No, they cannot release confidential information like that to the public of a case that is still under appeal, so they are obliged to stay tight lipped about it.

The Home Office is run by civil servants, not politicians. So it's not even like you can threaten politicians to help you or you'll make them look bad. Certainly, the minister responsible for Home Office Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for the Home Department, she doesn't get personally involved in such individual cases. That's not what ministers do, they don't get their hands dirty but it is people lower down the food chain who will make such decisions. Thus the civil servants really don't give a damn what the public thinks of them, they are not up for elections, they are not participating in a popularity contest, they just have to enforce the rules of the state. If they cave in to public pressure and grant Irene Clennell a visa, then imagine the kind of signal they're sending. "Don't have a valid case? Just whip the public up into a frenzy with plenty of lies on social media and the Home Office will abandon its principles and rule books instantly!" That would make the government look weak and it would make the Home Office look incompetent, because any kind of U-turn then would be an admission that they were wrong to have deported her in the first place.

What kind of precedent would this case set?

If you are begging for the Home Office to make a U-turn, then allow them the dignity to do so without the glare of the public gaze. In Asian culture, we call this 'giving face'. But the moment you put someone in the spotlight, you make it far harder for them to do any kind of U-turn because people are going to question and judge them for their initial decision that necessitated this U-turn. You're forcing the Home Office to defend their actions thus. But in the past Irene Clennell didn't go public and they said no to her. So I suppose at this stage, she has little to lose by going public like that even if it would almost certainly mean that her appeal would fail. It is a highly counterproductive step - sure it may be reassuring, comforting even to know that there are kind strangers out there that feel for you, but can these kind strangers influence a decision that will be made by a small group of civil servants in the Home Office? No, not at all. That's not how the system works and all I can say is that the Clennells have been rather naive about the process.

Q: Surely someone along the way has uttered the words 'Surinder Singh' as a solution? Even I know it.

A: For those of you not familiar with the Surinder Singh route, it is fairly simple. John would have to live and work in another EU country for 3 months and he can legally bring Irene along there as his wife. Once they have spent 3 months there, they can then assert the rights associated with EEA citizenship and free movement to gain access to the UK while being covered by European law. It is a bizarre law but a loophole nonetheless that still remains open as this page on the government's website indicates. Even if John cannot speak another European language, he can always go to Ireland which is another English speaking EU country and get some lowly paid blue collar work, the donations (totaling over £52,000 as we speak) can cover their living expenses in Ireland for the period of three months whilst they do the 'Surinder Singh' application. It can be done and I can't imagine why they haven't considered that route.

Q: What? If there's such a simple solution, then why didn't they go for it long ago?

A: Ha! The simple answer is that they are suffering from a mix of stubbornness and sheer stupidity. I'm afraid a lot of blue collar, working class people are unable to think outside the box - Irene is convinced that she must be allowed back into the country as a spouse of a British man, it's her way or the highway. Well that led to her deportation. It didn't occur to her for a moment that she was wrong and totally barking up the wrong tree. It's not a complex solution - heck, at work, we're currently having a pretty tricky problem with a major cross-border investment with a large amount of money moving from Chile via the US to a Swiss bank account before it can be channeled to us in the UK. This has been ongoing for a few weeks now and everyday, one of the team will come up with a new plan, a new idea to solve the problem, a different way to move the money from A to B to C to D. That's what white collar professionals do, we take the initiative to come up with very creative solutions - you can't have the "it's my way or the highway" attitude when it comes to solving complex problems. Yes I am talking about the British class system - the elephant in the room.

But regardless, it's no longer a route open to them as Irene has been slapped with a 10 year visa ban and they can try to make a Surinder Singh application but it will almost certainly be rejected if they tried it now. It was a route that was open to them but they squandered the opportunity because they were so stubborn and stupid, they thought the rules that everyone else obeyed somehow didn't have to apply to them. Their next best option is to move to Ireland where John can live at least for a while there until the UK formally lives the EU, that would buy them two years at least together. It should have been so incredibly straight forward - and it is not like they have not asked for help, it seems they have been speaking to this woman Li Goh-Piper (I believe I have encountered her on Facebook) who as been offering them immigration advice, suely someone like Li Goh-Piper would have at least told her to try the Surinder Singh route? Or is it simply a case of "you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink?" I know many of you are going to say that John's in ill health now and cannot pursue these options - but think about it, he had been working and was in good health for so many years, yet they couldn't get together then to find a workable solution years ago?

Q: How does Irene Clennell feel about the media frenzy?

A: I don't know because I am not really that concerned about her - sorry if that sounds callous but it's the truth. She's back in Singapore where she spent 43 years of her life (she's 53 today) and so it's not like we've dropped her in the middle of Timbuktu. Sources close to her have revealed that Irene has expressed "great unhappiness and grave concern at the wrong information being conveyed through the press and social media, whether deliberate or otherwise" - but really, neither Irene or Angela have any experience when it comes to dealing with the press. Neither women come across as particularly intelligent or articulate, it seems like that they don't really have a game plan - they are clearly enjoying the attention without realizing the detrimental effect it is having on their case. But she's let her sister-in-law run riot with this and it's too late. She has even showed up on my blog and posted a short comment in broken English ("Want to talk about me talk to me first i dont care who say what but i know the facts not tales") but hasn't followed up. But come on, if she was any more intelligent or sensible, would she have gotten herself into this much trouble in the first place?  Well, what were you expecting? Irene, you made your bed - now lie in it.

Q: What's all this talk about her accent then? Goodness gracious me, how British is she?

A: This is hilarious. Irene claims, "I don’t like going out here. I feel uncomfortable because every time I open my mouth people look at me strangely. My accent is different. When I’m here I just spend time in the room." This is utterly ludicrous - Irene is delusional. Firstly, I invite you to watch the interview she gave in the clip below - her accent is that of a Singapore of Indian ethnic origin. She does not sound English (or Geordie - as Emily Duggan suggests in her article) at all - far from it. Yet as we know, this was the very same woman who claimed that, "I don’t have anything in Singapore. I don’t have a house to go to, I don’t have a job. I feel closer to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law here than my family in Singapore." Yet guess what? She is currently staying with her sister's family in Singapore - granted they are not that rich and conditions are not perfect but it's not like she is sleeping on the streets of Singapore without any money at all. This woman realized that if she tells lies to make herself look more like a victim of circumstances, then the dumb British public who have already given her over £52,000 in donations will keep the money coming. If she wants more money, all she has to do is keep these lies up about just how horrible life in Singapore is despite Singapore being one of the world's richest countries, she is seriously pissing off and offending a lot of Singaporeans.

If you listen to the interview, Irene does something that virtually all Singaporeans and Indians do - it is the total inability to pronounce the TH digraph. This is something native speakers of English and people who have mastered English to a very high standard will be able to do, the fact that she turns her TH sounds into a D marks her out instantly as a non-native speaker of English with a strong foreign accent - which means she speaks far more like a Singaporean than someone from the North-East of England. Going beyond the accent, in the video she sounds like she is struggling to even formulate the sentences in English, pausing as if she is trying to find the right words to express herself. English doesn't even sound like her first language. Now granted that she has just gotten of a long flight and was probably tired in the video, it still does sound like she is speaking like someone whose first language isn't English - in fact, that is the way many older Singaporeans talk. But should that come as a surprise? She is an older Singaporean after all! 

In any case, Singapore is a big city with 5.75 million people - there isn't one 'accent' per se but a multitude of accents. The ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian groups each have their distinct accents when they speak English, one's education tends to shape the way we learn English and the accent we develop as we speak English. Then there's the issue of social class as well: English is the language of education and business, so if you work in a white collar environment where you are spending most of your time with others who use English as a first language all the time, who consume mostly Anglo-American media (music, movies, TV, radio etc) then you're more likely to encounter a form of 'educated international English' without a Singaporean accent. But in a blue collar work environment, the languages used are more likely to be Asian (Mandarin, Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, Tagalog, Tamil amongst others) so English will be a second or foreign language, a lingua franca at best in this kind of environment and it would come with a much stronger Asian accent. Listening to Irene Clennell in that interview, she certainly sounds very much like the latter.

Furthermore, amongst the 5.75 million residents of Singapore, there are 1.6 million non-resident expats (many of whom speak English as a second or foreign language). That doesn't even include the foreign born immigrants who are classified as 'Singaporeans and permanent residents' even if they were born and brought up elsewhere. That means that when you walk down the street in Singapore, when you get on a bus on Orchard Road, when you walk into any MRT station - you can speak to ten different people and encounter ten different kinds of accents. This is quite the opposite of a small town in North-East England where it is a lot more homogeneous, far less mixed and there is a dominant local accent. Ironically, with her strong Singaporean accent, Irene is going to stick out like a sore thumb in a small town like Chester-le-Street where her husband lived the moment she spoke, but in a very diverse, cosmopolitan, international city like Singapore, no one would bat an eyelid at her accent. I am pointing out the obvious, of course, for anyone who knows anything about Singapore. But we have already established that Irene will gladly tell lies as long as she can milk the dumb British public for more donations. Whoopee - who doesn't like free money?

Q: So why doesn't a journalist like Emily Duggan challenge Irene Clennell when she is clearly lying then?

A: Good question. Would Irene Clennell speak to someone like me? No, because my first question would be, "Irene, why are you lying to the media? Why is your sister-in-law Angela confused about how many years you spent in the UK - how would you feel if you got Angela into trouble over this?" I won't be a nice, sympathetic journalist who will publish her side of the story. I'll probably interrogate her like a criminal because I can see through her lies - that's why she wouldn't want to talk to me. Emily Duggan wants a story that will satisfy her readers. Let's talk about Buzzfeed for a moment: Trump has famously condemned them for being 'fake news'. Buzzfeed appeals to younger readers on the left wing of the political spectrum by writing stories that will like: it is called confirmation bias. Publishing a story about a silly woman who violates the conditions of her visa because she refused to follow the rules isn't going to appeal to them Their core readership already believes that the governments in power are evil and cannot be trusted, so publishing a story about a pitiful grandmother who gets deported offers them the kind of confirmation bias that they enjoy. In short, Emily Duggan is far more interested in pleasing her readers than reporting the truth because online news sites like Buzzfeed need to continue pleasing their readers to survive in a competitive environment, truth is sacrificed in the process.

I would ask Irene some very difficult questions.

Q: Doesn't that make Buzzfeed more of an entertainment website than a news website, where people go and read stories that gives them the kind of confirmation bias they crave, to agree with them rather than challenge their views? Is this why they have been accused of pandering 'fake news' by president Trump then?

A: Well it's not just Buzzfeed. A lot of the media is guilty of that - that's why different sections of the society (whether you want to divide them by left/right wing, or by social classes) read different newspapers and use different sources for their news. How do you think I feel when I read an article praising president Trump for all his great 'achievements'? Oh, it would sicken me to the stomach, it would not be a pleasing experience to do that. It's not so much that we are consciously seeking confirmation bias, but rather we prefer to read journalists who will write stuff that will not challenge our points of views. There was a time in Singapore a long time ago when people only read the Straits Times because that was the only English newspaper available - but in 2017, anyone can go online and choose any website they want for their news. The internet has changed the way news is reported more than any cultural tradition of 'freedom of speech' has but the conflict of interest is that websites like Buzzfeed still need to make money, they need to pay people like Emily Duggan along with a photographer to fly out to Singapore to interview Irene Clennell in Singapore. So it's not so much 'fake news' but entertainment at best for people seeking confirmation bias.

Q: Why did The Sun run a terribly inaccurate story on the case then? I thought the Sun pandered to a working class readership who hated all immigrants - so why did they take a sympathetic stance to Irene?

Good question - a complex one but a good question. The story sucked on so many levels: firstly the claimed that Irene spent 29 years in the UK, a total lie. They printed, "officials claim she broke immigration rules by spending too long out of the country to care for her dying parents in the 1990s." Yeah right, she was away for 11 years, they reported that she and her husband John were in Singapore for 5 years - again, the facts are plain wrong. In fact the story contradicts itself - even if she and her husband only spent 5 years in Singapore, then she couldn't have spent 29 years in the UK. The journalist who wrote the story can't do basic maths - but then again, neither can the average reader of their newspaper. This is a newspaper which is famous for their topless models on page 3 and great football coverage: it is designed to appeal to barely literate, working class, blue collar readers who are interest in boobs and football. Then again, this is the very demographic who voted for Brexit because they feared immigrants from Eastern Europe coming over to the UK taking their jobs away. Why would they take a sympathetic stance towards an immigrant then?

Why can't journalists do basic maths?

One reason could be that her husband John is a blue collar, working class older English man - he is probably the very kind of person who would read a newspaper like the Sun. It is a perfect match: he is unemployed and was claiming benefits - he claims he was too ill to work, but on the day Irene was deported, John received a letter from the government saying he was fit for work and would no longer get his employment support allowance (ESA). When John met Irene in 1988, he was a demolition worker in London. Now working on a construction site, doing demolition, that's as blue collar, working class as you can get. The Sun would be interested in the story if it affected someone whom their readers can relate to - so in this case, the angle is not so much that Irene was being deported, but a working class family in northern England is losing their wife, mother and grandmother because the Home Office won't make an exception and show mercy to her. This appeals to the old north-south divide in England: the callous rich, upper/middle class civil servants in London destroying the lives of decent poorer working class folks in the north - the angle does suit the the readership of the Sun pretty well. If they made it sound like Irene was a long term resident in the country, then she would look less like an immigrant - but that's all lies of course and the Sun's a terrible newspaper with no integrity.

Q: Hang on please. Journalists are supposed to be neutral, they should be the judge and executioner when they come across a controversial story. They should merely report facts, right? If they interviewed a person and the person lies, they can still use the interview - it is not really the journalists' job to start investigating who did what to whom? That's the job of the relevant authorities (police, a judge, Home Office or relevant government department). By that token, aren't you being harsh on the journalists who reported on this case without doing 'investigative journalism'?

A: When a newspaper publishes something that is misleading the public, then they are doing the public a massive disservice. What if I claimed that Michael Jackson and Elvis are both still alive and planning on doing a duet later this year? Clearly that's a lie, as both singers are dead - but just because I say that in an interview, should any self-respecting journalist print that in their newspaper or website? Clearly not. But this is exactly what happened in the Guardian (very left wing UK newspaper) today: they allowed Irene Clennell to tell her own story and it began with, "I've been in the UK since 1988" - great, she starts off with a big fat lie. She arrived in the UK in 1998 but has only at best spent 10 years in the country since then in 3 separate periods, including time spent in this country as an illegal immigrant when she overstayed her visitor's visa. Now any journalist who knows anything about the story will know that headline is a misleading lie - yet they printed it? Will they print my story about Michael Jackson and Elvis no matter how big a lie it is? Where is their integrity as journalists when it comes to misleading the public with lies?

Q: Irene arrived in the UK in 1988 (as a young 24 year old) and she was free to find work as a receptionist in a hotel in London? Now that's confusing. It seemed so easy for her to waltz into London in 1988 without a job offer, much less a work permit and then she was able to find a very lowly paid, unskilled job in a hotel? So how is that possible then, if it was so easy for her to come to the UK the first time back in 1988 and why was it so hard for her to return later?

I'm sure you have plenty of questions...

A: That's a hard question to answer, but then again, the journalists who have gotten close to Irene do not ask her hard questions. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt that she did everything legally then (and there's no reason to suspect that she did anything illegal then). She could have easily have come as a foreign student - London receives thousands of foreign students every year to study not just at the many universities in London, but there are a large number of other institutions that offer various courses and training as well. Full time students are allowed to work part time and typically, they do take on fairly junior, unskilled labour (similar to the job Irene took in 1988) to help make ends meet. That's one theory - the other is that she used another visa, the working holiday visa which allowed Singaporeans to spend 2 years in the UK working part time whilst being on holiday. Please note that this visa is no longer available as the UK government scrapped it some time back. Look at the timing of her marriage, she could have been near the end of that visa and got married to John then to continue to stay on in the UK. Both theories are equally plausible - not that it matters, nobody is doubting that she entered the UK legally in 1988 as those routes were open to her then.

Now is she able to to return again with a working holiday visa? No, as mentioned, this has been scrapped a few years ago and even if it still existed, you can only use it once before the age of 30. Could she return as a student? Technically speaking, that would have been a viable route for Irene - after her ILTR had lapsed, she could still have enrolled as a student in a university near her husband and then try to justify her status to remain once she can prove family life with her husband and children by living together in the UK. The only problem is that this is an expensive route as foreign students pay a lot of money to study in the UK and are not entitled to a penny of subsidies. Could her husband afford to bring up two children and pay for her to do a degree? Clearly not, if he is not a rich, highly skilled professional - he is just a blue collar worker. Yet Irene had a HDB flat in Yishun, so she could have sold it to pay for her degree - but she was adamant not to do so as she was convinced she could get back to the UK through other means.

Did Irene come to the UK as a student? That is quite possible.

Irene claimed on Buzzfeed, that she is upset at the implication from some that she might profit from all this. “This is not something that I want to do. People asked me how I feel about the money building up but it’s not about the money, because that’s no good to me if I have to stay here. I want to be with my family and that’'s it." Really? If so, why didn't you use the money from the sale of your HDB flat in Yishun to use it as a means to finance a degree that would have enabled you to return to the UK to be with your family then? Somehow, her story just doesn't add up, there are too many holes. On one hand, she wants to claim that she doesn't care about money and she just wants to be with her family, yet on the other hand, she was so reluctant to use her own money to 'buy' herself a way back into the UK within the law (by returning on a student visa). Certainly, the evidence of her past actions contradict what she claims - but then again, we all know she is a liar and so why should any of us be surprised that she has lied once again.

Q: Journalists have interviewed Irene, her sister-in-law Angela and her husband John, along with various members of her extended family in Singapore. Why haven't her children said anything to the media then, to support their mother?

A: By her own admission, Irene told Buzzfeed that she is estranged from one of her sons also named John (not to be confused with her husband). Her son John still hasn’t forgiven her for the eight years she was stuck outside the country while he and his brother were children. “He’s a bit frustrated but he won’t say it. Last time I saw him I said, ‘My visa application got rejected and I have to go back.’ I haven’t seen him since but I think the reason he’s staying away is he feels every time they get close to me I go away.” That's probably why her son John hasn't said anything to the media or wants anything to do with the media circus latching onto this story. There's no word on what her other son feels about that relationship but certainly, he's not speaking to the media either. There's really no talk about her relationship with her granddaughter either - we know Irene is a grandmother because the media can't stop talking about it, but even Irene herself hasn't said a word about her relationship with her grandchild which is bizarre as Asian grandparents love nothing more than to dote on their grandchildren. For all this talk about how important her family is to her, the evidence is painting a picture of quite the opposite - of a woman estranged from her family (but at least she is close to her sister-in-law, even if her own kids aren't talking to her). That wasn't enough to satisfy the Home Office.

Am I the only one concerned about the donations procured through lies

Q: Irene has claimed that the government is spying on her sister-in-law, how credible is that?

A: I'm not sure if that was meant as a joke, but that's completely not credible. The government have far better things to do! The only thing her sister-in-law has to worry about is if someone decides to launch a police report about her GoFundMe page, where she has obtained over £52,000 in donations by telling the public a pile of lies. I tried to look up Angela Clennell on the internet and she has virtually no internet footprint apart from anything associated with Irene's deportation. Now I am really good at tracking down people, that's part of what I have to do for a living - when I negotiate an important business deal, I dig up everything I know about the person I am dealing with, down to their shoe size and favourite ice cream flavour, so I know precisely what buttons to press during the negotiations. Many of the people I deal with do the same back to me: when you have been working professionally, your name appears in the press, you contribute to websites, you post stuff on social media and your internet footprint is there for the world to see. So for someone to have virtually no internet footprint prior to this case, it suggests that Angela Clennell never held an important job, was never active on social media and kept a very low profile all her life.

That isn't illegal of course, if she chooses to keep a low profile (and doesn't do anything noteworthy with her life), but why would the government be interested in spying on a woman from a small town in Northern England who hasn't done much with her life? There's nothing of interest there no matter how hard you look - this woman is boring. Scrolling through her Facebook page tells me just how incredibly vapid her life must be in Chester-le-Street - oh look she's checked in at the local dentist, duh. Good grief. Anyone from the government spying on her will fall asleep with boredom. If her life was really that boring, that I can see why she is milking all this media attention, like this must be the first time she has ever had the attention of so many strangers and talked to a journalist. She's not a dangerous criminal worthy of the government's attention - she's just a boring, small town simpleton who's not very intelligent. Give it a few weeks and she'll disappear into the woodwork, into obscurity.

Angela Clennell is just a frog at the bottom of a well.

Q: How might this case impact Singaporeans and indeed, other nationals who want to live and work in the UK? What about those who are married to British nationals, might they have reasons to worry?

A: Irene Clennell broke the rules that were clearly stated to her and this woman thinks that the normal rule of law doesn't apply to her. She is ridiculous and delusional - I'm being already being kind with my words. She didn't follow the rules whilst thousands of other foreign nationals who live and work in the UK did. I lived in the UK as a Singaporean for many years before naturalizing as a British national - the system is clear and fair, the rules are in the public domain. If you are not sure what the rules are, the onus is on you to get help. In my case, the help mainly came via a friend who is dual American-British national originally from the US who obtained his British nationality after living and working here for many years. It was not even that complicated, he merely helped double check that I had the right forms, filled in the paperwork correctly and each time he gave me help, it was settled in like 15 minutes, it was that straightforward. Irene Clennell is now slandering the British government and Home Office because she is too immature to take responsibility for her own stupid mistakes. Loads of Singaporeans living in the UK have no sympathy at all for her: we all follow the rules and obey the law, what makes you any different Irene? Why do you think the same rules don't apply to you? As long as you obey the law and find out what the rules are, you have nothing to worry about.

Q: Why do you take a personal interest in this case?

A: Well firstly, the UK has been very good to me. I have moved from Singapore to the UK and the Home Office treated me fairly and with dignity. So for Irene Clennell to come up with statements like, "The authorities have shown their willingness to treat foreign-born people as second-class citizens, no matter how integrated we are – and, worse, treat us like criminals." Well that's complete bullshit, that woman is a liar. I have never ever een treated like a second class citizen here and she has some cheek claiming to be well integrated when she still struggles with the English language and speaks like an uneducated older working class Singaporean. She was treated like a criminal because she broke the law by overstaying her visitor's visa - she is a criminal, not a dangerous one perhaps but a criminal nonetheless, just like a sister-in-law who isn't afraid to lie to the media and on GoFundMe. What a thoroughly rotten family they are and for them to slander the country I love? Well somebody has to stand up and speak the truth and if I have to, then okay so be it.

I have absolute faith in the British justice system.

Secondly, she then slanders Singapore, the country of my birth, where I spent the first 21 years of my life. She told such awful lies about Singapore to the media, as if they were sending her to some horrible place. I may not be fond of some aspects of Singaporean society, but I have always been very fair in the way I have judged Singapore and Singaporeans. I take the good with the bad and on balance, offer a very fair perspective on Singapore on my blog. Irene was happily married and settled in the UK in 1992 yet she willingly moved her family to Singapore - it shows a woman who likes Singapore enough to want to spend many years there and she spent a total of 43 years of her life there (she is 53 years told). She then claims she has nothing and no one in Singapore, yet sure enough, she is staying with her extended family who have shown nothing but kindness to her when she arrived there. If I were her sister, I would show up at Changi airport just to confront her for claiming that she has nothing and no one in Singapore. "Remember me? I'm your sister, what do you mean you have nothing and no one in Singapore? Am I nothing to you?" And that claim about her not fitting in because she wears Western clothes and sounds different? Singapore is such a modern, westernized country and her accent is 100% Singapore and 0% British. In fact, her English really sucks.

Okay I could go on, but I just want to get this article out whilst there is a lot of interest in the case. As usual, please feel free to leave a comment below and we can discuss it further. Let me know what you think, many thanks for reading.

Part 3 is here: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/part-3-fake-news-uk-home-office-and.html