We are, of course, delighted to have a Home Secretary that has humanity and is a decent human being, unlike her predecessors who “shall not be named”.
We are, of course, delighted that the wicked Rwanda Bill is going to be scrapped, and the remaining detainees threatened with being sent to Rwanda released and on bail for now.
However it is all very well to concentrate on Stop the Boats, but what about those who then are stuck in Northern France?
“New border security command” sounds good, securing our borders. But exactly who from?
There are thousands of people (yes people, not statistics or vaguely defined as foreigners) in camps that are in a terrible state, desperately trying to come to the UK. They have fled their country of origin for many reasons we know about, mainly war and persecution, and are wanting to settle in safety. They are seeking sanctuary.
Some will be wanting to have a “better life” with more life chances, just as people from the United Kingdom did centuries ago in the colonies and elsewhere. A lot will be desperately trying to be reunited with family members who are already here, for instance young people who have lost parents wanting to be with aunts and uncles.
So if whatever measures are brought in, to stop them coming over in a small boat, which is surely a desperate measure nobody should have to do, just what is going to happen to them? Are those who may have spent as much as two years making dangerous crossings over mountains and seas supposed to “go back where they came from”? Do they stay in the camps till they die?
The Liberal Democrat answer is having an outpost of the Home Office in northern Europe near the camps, where claims for asylum could be claimed and processed, humanitarian visas given to those whose claims were successful. It would be infinitely more humane, just, and even cheaper. In addition it would stop the boats, and stop the profiteering of the smugglers and traumatic journeys of those seeking sanctuary in the UK.
* Suzanne Fletcher was a councillor for nearly 30 years and a voluntary advice worker with the CAB for 40 years. Now retired, she is active as a campaigner in the community both as a Lib Dem and with local organisations and author of "Bold as Brass?", the story of Brass Crosby.
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7 Comments
Suzanne – it’s obvious that a hotel & three meals a day + a cash allowance is far preferable to a tented city with a portaloo in Calais…If labour do not get control of the situation then that support given last Thursday will soon start to ebb away…Let’s be honest they wasn’t voted in on a promise to make the system more generous…
I very much agree with you Suzanne. What I think needs to happen is that we should be allowing people to make claims at any British Embassy or Consulate anywhere in the world. That would reduce the demand for the criminal gangs and their leaky boats.
I agree with Yusuf. It appears that the majority of asylum applications are eventually granted anyway so it would make sense to allow people to apply for asylum from outside the country.
If we have Northern European outposts near the camps where people can claim ayslum, does that mean that anybody who then still chooses to come over in a small boat will be detained and deported as an economic migrant?
If the answer is no, then it will do absolutely nothing to stop the boats.
Thank you, Suzanne, for reminding us of the real opportunities now that we have Yvette Cooper MP as Home Secretary. At Liberal Democrats 4 Seekers of Sanctuary we know her to be an honest campaigner for improvements to the current asylum system and a friend to refugees, whether arriving through settlement schemes or as asylum seekers .
Yes, of course the sensible and most cost effective scheme is to at least begin the process of determining asylum claims before arriving safely in this country. Those arriving with humanitarian visas would fly here in expensively rather than being exploited by the agents or traffickers who make large amounts of money through their suffering. Everyone would agree with that.
Now let us meet Yvette Cooper and campaign to put this right at the top of her agenda alongside the lifting of the ban on asylum seekers taking paid employment until their claim is determined and ending administrative detention with no time limit. Let’s erase the dreadful reputation which Conservative policies have given to our country and show that we are not heartless .
And now this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx82wq77229o about the shocking state of Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre – note, an immigration detention centre, not a prison.
As the Ch inspector says, most of those locked up there should not be there in the first place, never mind being crowded into cells.
I am sure that those such as ‘Auberge des Migrants’ working to improve the lot of migrants in Calais would welcome a Home Office outpost. The people of the Calais region as a whole would welcome it too. It would pull the rug from under the feet of the people smugglers.