Please Don't Keep Tearing Families Apart...

They say great art is borne of pain—apparently so is very average art.

Looking back through my old diaries is an embarrassing journey of bare-all honesty. Much of it is alien now; a juvenile voice of a different time. Yet some things still strike me.

Crudely written, but raw and real, I found this poem from the worst days of my long-distance relationship:

The months stretch blindly ahead,

Just more months without you by my side.

My life is merely time with you and time without;

Each day just one more day in waiting,

One more day of pain.

You say you miss me, but can you feel the same?

Every breath is a pain in my side,

Every morning is a struggle to tear away;

To leave my dream world,

The paradise where you are.

I go through the motions to tick the boxes,

The things to do for the future I ‘need.’

But what am I doing it for?

Does it bring me any closer to you?

Nearer to happiness?

I fall asleep sighing your name,

Imagining the weight of your arm,

The scent of your chest,

The stubble on your jaw,

Can you understand?

I live to see you smile at me again;

Smile with those beautiful dark eyes.

Life could be an adventure again,

Each morning a beautiful new start,

With you here.

Who knew I could know such power?

That one hand could encase my heart.

How do I know you are my happiness,

In the midst of my sadness?

Can this be forever?

Some days I forget just how lucky I am that things worked out for me in the end (so far anyway!). But they could have been so different.

Currently 41 per cent of the British working population do not meet the income requirement to bring a foreign spouse into the UK. Already up to 15 000 children have grown up without one of their parents due to the policy introduced by Theresa May in 2012.

With strict rules about how the threshold can be met, the foreign spouse’s income not being considered, and very high fees on top, obtaining a family visa is already a bewildering challenge.

Yet Theresa May does not think this is enough. The Conservative manifesto vows to increase the earnings threshold to an unspecified higher amount.

Tearing apart families is the cruellest possible way to reduce immigration. Does anyone truly believe that love is a luxury, only to be afforded to the wealthy?

I wouldn’t wish the pain of indefinite separation from a life partner or child on anyone. But maybe if such policy makers, and those who vote for them, could feel this pain for just a moment, they would begin to understand the true cost of their political games.