In her column for the Scotsman this week, Christine Jardine tackles the issue of immigration head on.
She starts by talking about the issue of the protests at the hotels where asylum seekers have been accommodated and the court action surrounding the use of those hotels:
igger now than before the break, with a legal ruling in England which cast doubt on the future of asylum hotels and added to Nigel Farage’s ramping up of the rhetoric to push his party’s case. The Home Office successfully challenged the ruling, but there had already been protests and the espousal of anti-immigration rhetoric which made my blood run cold.
Build camps, treat people fleeing persecution and poverty like criminals, pay regimes like the Taliban to take back those whose only desire was to escape them and build a better, freer life for their families is what he calls for.
Nobody climbs into a flimsy overcrowded boat to endure a life-threatening journey with no life jackets for their children because it was the easy option?
Yet that is how Farage and his followers paint it in a campaign which aims to undermine the international structure of protections for Human Rights for refugees, indeed for us all, which grew out of the chaos and persecution of the Second World War.
Ahd she’s not happy at how some politicians are reacting to all of this:
Too many politicians seem paralysed now by the same sort of inexplicable fear that allowed that to happen.
That instead of standing up and saying: ‘Not in my time,’ they are pussyfooting around looking for a way to pacify extremists and allowing public fears to be exploited, rather than tackling the root of the problem.
So what should we be doing? She has a plan to empty those hotels – in a good way.
Basically, they would have the right to work in return for paying tax, national insurance and renting somewhere to live while their applications are decided.
This past week a radio interviewer keen to reflect the reality of the situation asked me: “Surely you must have an asylum hotel in your constituency? What do your constituents say?”.
I do have an asylum hotel and to date, during this ‘crisis’ I have had one email complaining. On the other hand, I had representation from the local community asking if I can do something to improve the conditions for the refugees.
She ends with a challenge:
Those of us who want to protect those born into a less supportive society than ours will be looking to the Home Secretary and the Labour Government to offer them, and us, some hope.
It is possible for us to want the best for those arriving on our shores as much as those born here. I do not look at anyone and assume the worst of them.
Human beings are human beings. I intend to ensure my country treats everyone as such.
You can read the whole article here.
* Newshound: bringing you the best Lib Dem commentary in print, on air or online.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
How Chancellor Reeves torpedoed the economy
The Disneyfication of Haley Mills
Survation now put Andy Burnham 10 points ahead in Makerfield
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Chris Cory
Ruth Bright
BigTallTim
Daniel Walker
Richard Good
20 Comments
I Agee that all human beings are equally human being. I also have huge sympathy with the hundreds of million of fellow humans living in poverty around the world. I want to see our country try to help address poverty in those countries – but I don’t want tens of million of people moving here to escape poverty. That is not a racist or extreme position.
“whose only desire was to escape them and build a better, freer life for their families”…
How many shall we take from Afghanistan , or for that matter Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, DR Congo, Eritrea….The list is endless using that as a metric.
In many UK towns the demographic changes have been significant & the so called economic benefits of record year on year inward immigration just haven’t materialised. The treasury is funding borrowing at eye watering costs. We will find out next May just how strong that feeling is across Wales.
Given the rhetoric, you wouldn’t believe that net immigration to the UK halved from 2023 to 2024. Obviously, nothing will be enough for the Faragists. After Brexit he and his cohorts have continued to weaponise immigration as he aims for power. Are we heading for a Trumpist dystopia where the UK equivalent of ICE grabs people off the street for deportation? I hope not.
I notice that the Trans debate has gone a bit quiet lately, perhaps they can only cope with one lot of hate figures.
I agree with Christine’s solution to the hotels: let them work, pay taxes, and find their own accommodation.
As someone who worked for the Home Office for 10 years interviewing asylum seekers and deciding whether to grant asylum, I would like to say more power to Christine on this.
@BrendaandGreg. Our country is and always has been a melting pot of different peoples. Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans,Vikings, Spanish, French Huguenots, assorted Europeans as well as people fleeing persecution from all manner of evil Regimes over the centuries. All of them have integrated to a greater or lesser extent. You only have to watch programmes like ‘DNA’ or ‘Who do you think you are’ to see this.
So why is this suddenly a problem?
Only because the like of Farage keep stirring it. It’s not Liberal and we don’t support that sort of thing.
Christine is absolutely right. Given aylum seekers the right to work, pay taxes and pay their own way, whilst their applications are considered. No hotels or other state funded homes would be necessary.
There are not tens of millions of people wanting to come here, this is just right wing propaganda
Incidentally, my mum came here in 1932 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. OK, she didn’t come on a small boat, but had she been sent back it would have been to certain death.
Is that what we want in 2025.
@Mick Taylor
“There are not tens of millions of people wanting to come here”
So, is there an upper limit on the number of people fleeing poverty we can/should take? Perhaps an annual upper limit?
Remember, we had over 100,000 asylum applications last year from those fleeing persecution. If we allowed those fleeing poverty to also gain asylum, we could well get 500,000 per year…over 20 years that would add up to 10 million people.
@Mick “There are not tens of millions of people wanting to come here” – You really haven’t interacted with recent migrant communities much have you? 🙂 I’d say hundreds of millions is likely nearer the mark! But the thing is, the vast majority of the people who would like to come to the UK never even try because they know how hard/expensive it is. There’s a reason why in recent years successive Governments have made coming to the UK ever harder – and it really isn’t the racism/xenophobia/whatever that so many liberals like to make out: It’s simple application of supply and demand in a ‘market’ in which the number of people who want to live here vastly exceeds the numbers of people that we could ever reasonably allow to live here, and therefore you have no choice but to take measures to increase the ‘price’ of coming here in order to restrict demand.
We are talking about asylum and refugees here. They are fleeing religious, political and ethic oppression and war/famine. Many of them stay for a while and return home when the countries they fled are safe again. (Viz the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq).
If we are talking about economic migrants, they want to come here to work in the NHS, care homes, public utilities. Others start their own businesses. The UK has an ageing population and needs younger workers to provide care. Many economic migrants later return to their own countries.
I welcome people who come here to work, pay taxes and enhance our communities.
@Mick: What makes you think many people return home when their countries become safe, after being granted asylum in the UK? As far as I can see, there are no official figures on that, but the impression I have is that almost no-one does so. And why on Earth would you return when, once you’ve been granted asylum, you are pretty much guaranteed an economically far more prosperous life in the UK then you could have in any of the places that refugees tend to come from?
Also – since you appear to be referring to people arriving in small boats. Those people may well have fled persecution at the start of their journeys, but at the point that they cross the Channel they are fleeing from checks map again France! How much war/famine/political oppression do you think is happening in France?
– Simon R
Refugees are not required under the Refugee Convention to remain in the first safe country they reach. In fact, the overwhelming majority do seek safety in neighbouring states. Only a small proportion make their way to the UK — often drawn by shared language, deep-rooted historical connections, or family ties that offer a sense of familiarity and hope for rebuilding their lives.
I suggest you read the Refugee Convention of 1951 so in the future you can avoid basing your arguments on misinformation from the populist right.
“Small boat immegration is an own goal by Starmer & Co.” (From Prem Sikka comment on the article appended below)
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/09/04/will-people-sacrifice-the-nhs-to-control-migration/
Might this article and its comments relating to Brexit as a formost factor in small boat immigration be of interest/use?
@Andrew: I have read the 1951 Refugee Convention, but thanks for the assumption that I hadn’t 😮. As you say, it doesn’t explicitly require refugees to claim asylum in the first safe country, but neither does it explicitly give them the right to (illegally) pass through safe countries. Most likely that’s an issue that simply hadn’t occurred to the authors to deal with. However there is nothing in the document that suggests any intention to give refugees the right to roam the World, passing through one safe country after another, in search of the ideal country that they would like to settle down in. Indeed, Article 31 (about not imposing penalties for illegal entry) specifically refers only to people who have arrived directly from the territory where their life is in danger.
You accuse me of misinformation, but from where I stand, I’m not the one misinterpreting the intention of the Convention…
“Most likely that’s an issue that simply hadn’t occurred to the authors to deal with. ”
Almost certainly. In 1950 the Uk immigration legislation was the 1948 act which gave everyone in the Empire/Commonwealth the right to live and work in the UK. I believe that was 800 million people! i think it’s fair to say they didn’t anticipate the growth of cheap, readily available mass trave and the context of international migration has developed a tad since. I doubt it would happen but there is a reasonable case for revising that treaty in light of the modern world.
@Simon R
The first thing I found on 2 mins googling is this 2004 report:
https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/briefing-notes/returns-bosnia-and-herzegovina-reach-1-million
“In all, 1,000,473 people out of a total of more than 2 million people forcibly displaced during the war had returned to their home areas by the end of July, according to the latest monthly figures released today by UNHCR in Sarajevo. Of these, around 440,000 were refugees who had fled Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 560,000 were forcibly displaced inside the country.”
– Simon R
“The term “directly” should be interpreted broadly and not necessarily in a literal (geographical or temporal) sense. For Article 31(1) to apply, refugees are not required to have come to the current host country without crossing through, stopping or staying in any other intermediate country or countries after leaving the territory where their lives or freedom are threatened” – UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection on the application of Article 31 of the 1951 Convention
I apologise for ascribing to ignorance what ought to have been recognised as malice.
@Andrew: I’m trying to debate in good faith, offering my honest opinions about what is realistic to do around immigration etc. In response, you first tried to smear me as being uninformed and spreading right wing misinformation (false), and now you’ve tried to smear me as being malicious (again, false). Are you actually interested in a reasonable exchange of opinions or are you just here to insult people who disagree with you?
The guidance you quote: was issued in 2024 – more than 70 years after the 1951 Refugee Convention. And it directly contradicts what the Convention actually says. The word ‘directly’ has a clear meaning in English and that meaning is NOT ‘indirectly, via lots of other safe countries‘. This appears to be a case of the UNHCR trying to get countries to act as if the Refugee Convention says what some people wish it had said, rather than what it actually says. If people want to change the rules on refugees so that we grant refugees the right to roam the World looking for the perfect country to live in, then surely a more honest way is to seek to revise the Refugee Convention so that it says so, rather than to pretend it already says something that it clearly doesn’t say. (And realistically, as @Hywel points out, it’s pretty clear that the Convention has been overtaken by the modern World, so I’m quite sympathetic to revising it anyway).
@Simon R
In the past you have misrepresented and insulted myself and other posters without any provocation. Your self-image is inconsistent with your past behaviour.
There is no legal requirement for refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country they reach. Sneering at people fleeing torture and murder, checks dictionary again, could fairly be described as malicious.
@Andrew:
1. I am very certain that I have never deliberately misrepresented or insulted you or anyone here. Of course that that leaves the possibility that I’ve mistakenly misrepresented someone as a result of misunderstanding something they’ve written. But if you felt you’d I’d misrepresented something you said, then the correct action would have been to point that out at the time, not to, weeks or months later, come up with a vague accusation of having been misrepresented, which is completely unanswerable because there’s no context.
2. Are you seriously trying to suggest that because you feel you’ve been misrepresented in the past, that makes it OK to smear me by describing me as ‘malicious’? Do two wrongs make a right?
3. Yes you’ve said a couple of times that there’s no legal requirement (in the Convention) to seek asylum in the first safe country. But do you seriously think it’s OK for an asylum seeker to smuggle themself through multiple safe countries ignoring that they could claim asylum in any of them, because they have a particular other country they’d like to settle down in? If so, good luck trying to sell that idea to most of the population! That kind of thing is exactly why Reform are doing so well 🙁 Asylum is supposed to be to enable people to be protected from harm, not to allow people to pick and choose which country they’d like to live in!
Simon R
I suggest you go through your posting history and count how many times you have accused people that you disagree with or have misconstrued of being liars.
You are against establishing safe, legal routes for refugees and also against accepting refugees from safe countries like France. If I have understood you correctly then given that the UK is surrounded by safe nations, the logic of your position is that seeking asylum here should be impossible in practice. This is indistinguishable from Reform’s approach—and you cannot effectively counter Reform by adopting their core arguments.
Worse, such a position closes of any possibility of practical solutions. Suppose we could agree the following deal : we accept 25 thousand refugees a year from France and in return they would take back any refugees crossing the channel in small boats. This would remove any incentive for perilous crossings while fulfilling our humanitarian obligations. But presumably practical solutions of this sort are out of bounds as far as you are concerned because for you no refugees should be coming to the UK from a safe country.
The way of dealing with the refugee issue is through efficient processing of claims and multilateral deals not echoing right wing talking points that seek to cast all asylum seekers coming from France as illegitimate by definition.
All people living legally here should be treated equally. Having said that what do we do about people arriving? We can tighten immigration rules so less come legally. Asylum is the real issue. If people arrive on our shores by an illegal route we have a dilemma. They de facto are here and they arrived by an illegal mechanism. We have no choice other than to process them according to the law if they claim asylum. How we treat them while their claim is being processed shows what sort of country we are.