…by marrying multiple women and helping to destroy Britain by increasing the strain that you and yours put on the infidel nation’s already burgeoning welfare state!

It sounds ridiculous – heck, it is ridiculous! – but the new guidelines issued by the Department for Work and Pensions read thusly:

“Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate

… The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65.”

Hhhmmm. No clarifying data was given, but I’m going to assume that this is a monthly amount. The approximately $70 granted per additional concubine – sorry mate, there’s only one wife in this day and age (and yes, she must be female!) – is more of a token payment, if my assumption is correct.

Perhaps three or four can live as cheaply as two in Britain? No, I thought not.

But wait, there’s more good news for polygamous lawbreakers and their many companions:

Under the deal agreed by ministers, a husband with multiple wives may also be eligible for additional housing benefit and council tax benefit to reflect the larger property needed for his family.

Islamic law permits men to have up to four wives at any one time – known as a harem – provided the husband spends equal amounts of time and money on each of them.

During the .com bust a few years back a friend of mine had identified England as a likely place to leave the U.S. for in the event the poo really hit the fan here. Wouldn’t that have been a decision to regret, what with these geniuses running the asylum?

The review concluded in December last year with agreement that the extra benefits should continue to be paid, the Government admitted. The decision was not publicly announced.

Four departments – the Treasury, the DWP, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Home Office – were involved in the review, which concluded that recognising multiple marriages conducted overseas was “the best possible” option. In Britain, bigamy is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Yep, allowing a specific subculture with an inclination for achieving high birth rates and encouraging anti-democratic violence is definitely the best possible option!

No, wait, here’s a better one: How about enforcing the laws of the land and protecting Britain’s cultural norms? Evidently that is too difficult for Labor. Not surprisingly, the clowns in the DWP lack even the spine to keep their own regulations from being gamed:

Entry clearance may not be withheld from a second wife where the husband has divorced his previous wife and the divorce is thought to be one of convenience,” an immigration rulebook advises. “This is so, even if the husband is still living with the previous wife and to issue the entry clearance would lead to the formation of a polygamous household.”

The Tories are said furious and justifiably so. There is at least one man with a bit of courage left in England, though that’s scant hope for the notion that the light of logic and common sense might not be turned off there just yet:

Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said that the decision was “completely unjustifiable”.

“You are not allowed to have multiple marriages in the UK, so to have a situation where the benefits system is treating people in different ways is totally unacceptable and will serve to undermine confidence in the system.

“This sets a precedent that will lead to more demands for the culture of other countries to be reflected in UK law and the benefits system.”

Mr Grayling also accused the Government of trying to keep the ruling quiet because the topic is so controversial.

Quite.