A key test for any society must surely be how it looks after those most in need. Surely no one decent can fail to be moved by that heart wrenching photo of Alan Kurdi, the young Syrian boy washed up, dead, on a Turkish beach. How then, can this government turn its back on thousands of child refugees, breaking its own promises as well as any moral decency?
I’ve been concerned about refugee issues for decades – it’s one of the reasons I went into politics in the first place. As the MP for Cambridge, I served as the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees. It was a hard task, and many of the stories I heard were shocking.
People frequently waiting up to 16 years for a decision to be made on whether they could stay, leaving them stranded in limbo. Women who had been raped by uniformed officials in their home country, treated awfully when they got here, somewhere they should have been safe, because they hadn’t told the full personal details to the first uniformed official they saw. One man who had been tortured and condemned to death for converting to Christianity, who had his application rejected because there was not enough proof he was at risk if he went back; apparently the fact that he had a copy of the death sentence wasn’t enough.
We made some progress on the system in those years – I was delighted that we were able to end the routine detention of children for immigration purposes, something that shamed this country. But conditions were far from decent, far from fair, and expensive to boot.
The conflict in Syria has generated millions of refugees and displaced people. Most of them are in the neighbouring countries to Syria – hardly any make it out to Europe. Those that do suffer immensely to get here. The death rate is unimaginably high. No one would set out on a trip like that lightly or voluntarily – they do so because there is little alternative.
The best solution, of course, is to prevent the things that turn people into refugees. The wars, droughts, persecution, and famines that strike parts of the world. Refugees would much rather live in their own homes, in their own countries, free from the risk of danger and death. But where we have not been able to do that, we must surely do our part in helping the victims.
I worked when I was an MP to establish a Syrian Resettlement Program, to help refugees from Syria. I was delighted when my friend and colleague, the Labour Peer Alf Dubs, with whom I worked on many occasions, secured his famous ‘Dubs Amendment’, ensuring that this country would take child refugees who needed our help. It was suggested that 3,000 children would be taken into this country – a tiny fraction of those at risk, but a huge benefit for those individuals.
So I was devastated when I saw that our Prime Minister is now ending the scheme early, after taking only a few hundred children, abandoning thousands more to their fate. She has been rightly condemned by all parties for this heartless and uncharitable act. My own Lib Dem colleagues have attacked her, as have Labour, Green, SNP, and even some principled Conservatives. Religious and moral leaders from all backgrounds, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the head of the British Humanist Association, have united to beg her to change her mind.
This should not be a party political issue. It’s a simple moral question, to help those in a desperate plight. If history were different, it could be us or our families in need. We have an obligation to help.
* Julian Huppert was the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge from 2010-15
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5 Comments
But Julian this is a political issue because you are dealing with a Tory government. People who have no moral compass. May’s government is solely interested in making up for her perceived failure to control immigration as Home Secretary. It’s what Brexit is about for her and it’s what’s behind this immoral and reprehensible approach to refugee children.
Help should be, and is, given by this country to refugees in or near areas of conflict. Although I am not a conservative voter I agree with the government on this issue. Absolutely no encouragement or assistance should be given to those people who have come to Europe by means of illegal smuggling or people trafficking. This just incentivises people to put themselves in danger and give money to criminals. I would also take issue with the idea that bringing children to the uk is always in their interest. These children are traumatised and vulnerable and are better helped by their own people, not strangers.
There are hundreds of millions of children in dire straights around the World.
Bringing them all to the UK or to Europe is not a realistic solution. Indeed it is not a solution at all.
The practical solution is to improve the governance and the wealth of third world countries and countries at war. Child poverty has already been dramatically reduced within many asian countries so we know it can be done. We should all focus on the cure and not be diverted by political gestures.
Julian , someone , needs to say how May gets away with saying it is not the finishing line for the scheme, that European colleagues want her and us to pause or take no more from France, including the French ! Did the author not hear her speech, or the bishops? We need to be informed , it is her word that is something we are questioning, she is saying the numbers are to continue , but from the camps, is it the truth , explain please , rather than immotive language ?!
This throws a light on our Prime Minister as Home Secretary and presumably her attitude now. Under UN and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which we were very involved in creating in the forties, families are supposed to be protected from being separated and helped to be united, but very little was done for children in Calais even with family in Britain to go to. After the Dubs Amendment local authorities tried to get response from the Home Office in order to discuss the necessary plans but only got one on the Friday before the Monday when the French were due to start demolition of the Calais Jungle. A friend asked someone who had been in the Home Office about this who confirmed that they had been waiting for instructions which had not come. For a country of 65 million to be unable to take in 3000 children is extraordinary when Jordan has 650,000 refugees, Lebanon over a million and Turkey 2.8. The legal ways of trying to get in are very difficult as even interpreters who had worked for us and are in great danger and where the army presses for them citing the vital and dangerous help they had given. Things were different when my husband was in Romania with SOE and after the armistice had the job of setting up the British press office in the Control Commission. He had recruited Romanians who after the Communist take over were arrested, imprisoned and tortured. When they were eventually released they were given British citizenship, back pay, the right to a British pension , the offer of a job. At the time we were virtually bankrupt. This was normal, it was not a unique case. We will undoubtably need
interpreters somewhere again, but we will have lost our reputation and will find it pretty difficult.