Tag Archives: immigration

Shaun Ennis

Challenging the narrative around immigration

By Shaun Ennis | Mon 6th June 2016 - 10:55 am

It’s a referendum about Britain’s future, at the risk of being decided by the prejudices of past generations. Both Labour and the Conservatives are divided, facts are manipulated to suit the needs of the day and the voices of the young are generally being drowned out by those of the old.

The outlook is bleak for young and first time voters, but more than anything else related to the EU referendum I am disappointed by the amount of fearmongering and negativity that has dominated the ‘Brexit’ campaign.

Financially speaking, Boris & Gove don’t have much left to stand on. Reasonable discourse and sensible debate have been thrown to the wind as the Brexit economic argument collapses under the weight of its own incoherence. Now, in tried and tested fashion, those politicians who would have us withdraw from the EU are turning to the politics of fear and division. The anti-immigration rhetoric has been stamped in bold all over this referendum for the world to see, almost at the cost of any other pro-Brexit sentiment. Should we, as a nation, decide to leave the European Union on June 23rd, the message that decision will send to the continent and to the world will not be one of national pride of reclamation of sovereignty it will be one of collective xenophobia and isolationism.

We are surely better than this. That’s why, when Brexit point the finger at foreigners we have to speak out and challenge the narrative that we are somehow not masters of our own fate.

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Mark Argent

It’s time to come clean about immigration

By Mark Argent | Sun 5th June 2016 - 9:19 am

It is time to come clean about immigration. It is a good thing. It is a good thing culturally and economically.

My life is vastly enriched by friendships with people who have come to the UK as immigrants and others who are the children of immigrants. They include people who came seeking asylum and people who came seeking a better life. My life is enriched by other friends who have emigrated, through whom I have valued networks of friends in many other parts of the world.

Economically too, migration matters. People sometimes talk as if there are a finite number of jobs and immigrants increase the competition. This is nonsense. Immigrants come, they work, they buy things, their presence boosts the economy. They create more work and more possibility.

A study published in 2014 showed that European migrants pay substantially more in taxes than they take in benefits. They arrive having finished schooling, and all the costs to the state of bringing people to adulthood.

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News Meerkat

‘I came from Bangladesh, the Government lost my passport and now I’m a Liberal Democrat’

By News Meerkat | Tue 19th April 2016 - 11:54 am

The Plymouth Herald reports:

Voters in next month’s council election will be confronted by a host of new names – but none with a more fascinating story than the Liberal Democrat candidate for Efford.

Rafiqul Haque grew up in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, and came to the UK on a family holiday aged 14.

While they were here their home country elected a new government and their citizenship was revoked, rendering them effectively stateless.

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Sally Hamwee

Baroness Sally Hamwee writes…Another win for humanitarians in the Lords

By Sally Hamwee | Thu 17th March 2016 - 1:41 pm

I bumped into the Lords Home Office minister immediately after one of the Government’s socking defeats on the Trade Union Bill, consoling himself that losing by 17 in the vote on an Immigration Bill amendment time-limiting immigration detention was almost a victory.

But the Government lost – we won!  The amendment was led by crossbencher Lord Ramsbotham, who was Chief Inspector of Prisons and so knows whereof he speaks, supported by the Labour and the Liberal Democrat front benches: 63% of our peers voted compared with 46% of Labour’s.  Of course it may not stick.  The Bill will go back to the Commons where the Government could ping it straight back to the Lords (parliamentary ping-pong), or propose a compromise or changes ranging from the substantive to the technical (or accept it unchanged – but that almost never happens), but it cannot be ignored.

There is much to be said about immigration detention and the conditions in immigration removal centres.  I will simply note the paradox which causes detainees so much despair: You have no hope, as you don’t know when you might be released, and at the same time you have no certainty as you might in fact be released tomorrow.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes…The liberal challenge on immigration

By Tim Farron MP | Tue 15th March 2016 - 11:55 am

It’s not often that regional elections in other European countries get much attention in our press, let alone become headline news. The fact that elections yesterday in a handful of German states made front pages here today demonstrates the unusual situation Britain and Europe find itself in. It also highlights the growing need for strong, liberal voices across our continent.

Those of you who heard my speech on Sunday, or in fact have heard me speak since I became leader, will hopefully have a sense of my beliefs on the refugee crisis and on the wider issue of immigration. Our government has tended to bury its head in the sand, but with no short term end to the conflicts scarring the Middle East and climate migration on the rise, we cannot let a policy of ignorance be maintained.

More than ever, it is our responsibility as liberals to stop the immigration debate descending into hard line, xenophobic rhetoric that sets community against community. The relative success of Alternative fur Deutschland in these German elections shows how challenging that can be. Especially when the “pro-immigration” parties in Germany still vastly outweigh the anti, just one story makes better headlines than the other. Similarly, here in the UK, we would be foolish to think the decline of UKIP will see an end to the blaming of the other. 

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John Marriott

One particular “fear” could decide the result of the EU Referendum

By John Marriott | Fri 4th March 2016 - 10:55 am

BMW writes to its UK employees highlighting the dangers of Brexit. A French minister threatens to wave through migrants at Calais en route to Dover and to roll out the red carpet to welcome financial services to his country if we leave. Boris and others say none of this will happen. Great Britain still is great. From his residence across the Channel Lord Nigel Lawson tells us not to worry. The EU needs us more than we need them. Confused? I bet many people are.

Like Lord William Hague, I’m an EU pragmatist. Better inside the tent etc. Unlike our former leader I don’t think that the EU will be ‘about the same’ in ten years’ time. The remarks from Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, following last week’s summit were very apposite. The ‘negotiations’ undertaken by David Cameron, while casually dismissed as ‘thin gruel’ by Eurosceptics like Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, have whetted the appetite of many recent, and not so recent arrivals in the EU for a fundamental change of direction for a project that started life in the aftermath of WW2 when many parts of the world were on their uppers and the numbers of nations actually making things was a shadow of what exists today.

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Joe Otten

Free movement in the EU and control of our borders

By Joe Otten | Tue 1st March 2016 - 4:43 pm

One or two very welcome guests below the line at Liberal Democrat Voice have challenged us to talk more about immigration in the context of the EU referendum. Because people want the UK to “take back control of our borders”. So here we are.

Of course we do have control of our borders. We are not part of Schengen, and there is nothing they could do to make us join. We have our own immigration policy, subject, as with all policy, to treaty obligations. The specific treaty obligation of interest here is the provision in the Treaty of Rome to …

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Paul Walter

Immigration: pride over our policy, the importance of words…and a mea culpa

By Paul Walter | Sat 27th February 2016 - 2:07 pm

A little while ago I was incensed with being bombarded day and night by media stories about Cameron and negotiations about benefits for EU migrants. This is a blog, at the end of the day (good blogging term there), so I blogged about it. What came out was a knee-jerk rant (“Migrants’ benefits debate is a proxy channel for xenophobia in some quarters” (the last three words being added after publication)). Some of the best blogging is based on knee-jerk rants. Not this time. On this occasion I should have been a little more careful with my words.

In the end, I raised the white flag in the ensuing debate and modified my article to emphasise that I was only talking about xenophobia “in some quarters” and that “I acknowledge that many have genuine and sincere concerns about this policy area for legitimate reasons.”

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Alistair Carmichael MP

Alistair Carmichael MP writes…Suzanne Fletcher reminds us how one person can make a difference for vulnerable people

By Alistair Carmichael MP | Wed 20th January 2016 - 5:55 pm

Today in Parliament the Minister for Immigration was forced to explain why G4S were housing asylum seekers behind red doors, leaving them open to targeted attacks. The Minister, who said he was “deeply concerned”, in response sprang into action announcing an audit of asylum seeker accommodation in the North East. Good to see the Minister reacting so quickly to something that was only in the papers that morning you might think. Not so.

Suzanne Fletcher, former Liberal Democrat Councillor and now Chair for Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary, has been campaigning on this issue doggedly for years. In fact, it is predominantly down to her campaign work that this became a news story today.

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Caron Lindsay

Do you know your other half’s National Insurance Number?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 20th January 2016 - 10:15 am

I am a bit of a swot, but I do actually know my husband’s NiNo, but that’s because, for many years, the form-filling in our house has been my job, not least because his writing would make most doctors look like great calligraphers. Similarly, I am fairly well acquainted with his clothing and its size because I do most of the washing.

Why, I can hear you asking, is this even relevant? Well, the Daily Mirror covered Alistair Carmichael’s reaction to a particular paragraph in Stephen Shaw’s review into the treatment of vulnerable people in immigration detention.

Shaw visited Dungavel House, in Scotland, where he was told by detainees of some of the ridiculous questions they were asked (page 52, paragraph 3.71) in order to prove that their marriages were genuine:

The questions they said they had been asked by caseworkers to ascertain whether their marriage was a sham included their knowledge of their wife’s National Insurance number, the colour of her underwear, and her bra size. If this was indeed the case, it is questionable whether such questions were either appropriate or useful.

Of course, the Mirror used this as an excuse to print a photo of women in underwear. That’s so 20th century.

Our Home Affairs spokesperson’s response was vintage Alistair:

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Caron Lindsay

Carmichael calls for time limit on immigration detention

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th January 2016 - 4:52 pm

The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto last year called for an end to indefinite detention for immigration purposes, building on the end to child detention that Nick Clegg insisted upon as part of the coalition agreement. Today, a review of welfare in detention of vulnerable people conducted for the Home Office by Stephen Shaw has been published. In it he makes 64 recommendations, including that alternatives to detention be sought. Some of the changes he wants to see are so basic that you are shocked that they are not done already – the provision of even basic mental health treatment, for a start.

This one is quite chilling:

Recommendation 33: I recommend that the Home Office review detainees’ access to natural light and to the open air, and invite contractors to bring forward proposals to increase the time that detainees can spend outside.

And as for this one, you mean we don’t already?

Recommendation 35: I recommend that the service provider at Yarl’s Wood should only conduct searches of women and of women’s rooms in the presence of men in the most extreme and pressing circumstances, and that there should be monitoring and reporting of these cases.

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Lord Roger Roberts

Roger Roberts on breaking bones

By Lord Roger Roberts | Mon 26th October 2015 - 2:59 pm

Last week Roger Roberts spoke in the Lords debate on the Universal Declaration on Human Rights: Article 18. This is his speech:

I remember that when I was a child, we used to say in school, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me”.

The truth of course is that names can hurt and can lead to abusive and destructive actions. We should take great care what we say in our speeches—not only the content but the tone of our voices. I suggest that even Home Secretaries, sometimes, could think about what they are saying and the effect it …

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The Voice

Willie Rennie and Kirsty Williams challenge Scots and Welsh Tory leaders to disown Theresa May’s “borderline xenophobic” comments

By The Voice | Wed 7th October 2015 - 2:37 pm

Tim Farron was quick to condemn Theresa May’s speech yesterday, saying that she, not immigrants, were damaging to social cohesion. I think it was one of the most disgraceful speeches we have ever heard from a Home Secretary and, let’s face it, Jack Straw, John Reid and David Blunkett had already ensured that the bar was in the gutter. At the time of writing, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition has not yet deigned to challenge her.

We’ve seen over the Summer how the Welsh and Scottish Tory leaders have set themselves apart from the wilder rhetoric coming from senior Conservatives, such as the “swarm” comments of the Prime Minister. Their Liberal Democrat counterparts Kirsty Williams and Willie Rennie have challenged them to dissociate themselves from Theresa May’s comments.

Kirsty said:

Andrew Davies must speak out against Theresa May’s outrageous speech or we must assume that he shares her views. He was right last month to call for extra help for refugees fleeing the crisis in Syria, but his position is at odds with the borderline xenophobia we heard from the Home Secretary.

Britain is socially, culturally and economically richer for our outward looking, tolerant approach. Yet this Conservative government is whipping up fear and mistrust.

Willie added:

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Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Tim Farron: It’s Theresa May, not immigrants, who is really damaging Britain

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 6th October 2015 - 4:21 pm

The unpleasant rhetoric of Theresa May’s speech this morning has given every liberal what we Scots call “the dry boak” Her remarks were not measured, not reasonable and entirely designed to win over that small proportion of the population who are members of the Conservative Party.

Anyone who knows anything about the immigration system will know how difficult it is to actually get into this country. Married couples often have to endure years of separation before (and it’s not inevitable that they will be) they can live together in this country. The strain put on families is intolerable. People who have endured unimaginable hardships and abuse are often turned away when they come here seeking sanctuary.

Tim Farron has spent the day standing up to May’s inaccurate, misleading and shocking speech. He’s written an article for Politics.co.uk in which he says there is someone damaging Britain – and it is not immigrants:

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Caron Lindsay

Report slams effects on children of family immigration rules

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 11th September 2015 - 12:40 pm

There are rightly many areas where the Liberal Democrats can be proud of what we achieved – and stopped – in government. There were other areas where we had little impact and left things in a much worse state than we found them. For me the most noticeable of these was immigration. Not only did we countenance some highly unfair changes, particularly the income requirement for spousal visas, for which our Ministers must take the blame, but our Conference passed policy which reflected what the coalition had done rather than our own liberal values.

In York two years ago I made an intervention in the debate on immigration to say I’d be voting against the policy, and that it broke my heart to do so. That was captured by the Guardian at 10:42 here. 

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The Voice

Farron urges Theresa May to help Calais refugees

By The Voice | Wed 19th August 2015 - 6:40 pm

Tim Farron has written to Theresa May to ask her to help the refugees in Calais. He visited the port earlier this month and saw for himself the conditions people had to live in and also heard some of their stories. Here is his letter in full:

Dear Theresa,

I am writing to you about the humanitarian crisis in Calais ahead of your meeting with French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later this week.

I welcome the measures the Government has already taken to improve the security situation at the Eurotunnel and reduce the disruption which has been caused for British businesses and holidaymakers, but am writing to ask that the UK do more to ensure that the humanitarian crisis in Calais is properly recognised and addressed.

Having visited the Jules Ferry migrant support centre in Calais and met with organisations working on the ground, it is clear that many of those living in “the jungle” are refugees fleeing war and persecution. The organisations who are currently working to support these very vulnerable people are under extreme pressure. The conditions in Calais fall far short of international standards on the treatment and welfare of refugees. Water and sanitation are all in short supply and medical support stretched beyond capacity. Many are being forced to subsist on the one meal a day that the centre is able to provide. More funding and better coordination are urgently needed, and the UK needs to do more. It is absolutely right that we work together with the French to fund improvements in security at the Eurotunnel and action on people trafficking, but the humanitarian support that is so desperately needed must also be adequately funded.

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The Voice

#WeAreAllHuman: Liberal Youth members show solidarity with Calais refugees

By The Voice | Fri 7th August 2015 - 8:53 am

“We will not dehumanise, we will not demonise, we will support them.”

Liberal Youth members have made a video in solidarity with the refugees in Calais. Joanne Ferguson, who joined the Party in May and has written for this site several times, tells David Cameron: “You have the power to save human lives, use it.”

Watch and share.

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Anton Georgiou

Let’s appeal to lovers of a big- hearted Britain and win the immigration argument.
 


By Anton Georgiou | Wed 5th August 2015 - 10:22 am

I felt compelled to put into words my thoughts on the situation in Calais following David Cameron’s intervention, describing those seeking refuge in the United Kingdom, as ‘swarming’ over the border.

To invoke the language of the BNP, UKIP, the National Front, and the English Defence League is irresponsible and inflammatory. Similar language was used by the Daily Mail in the 1930s when describing Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution.

My family are refugees; my grandparents and their three young daughters were forced to flee their homes following the invasion of Cyprus in 1974. This issue is therefore very close to my heart. The UK gave refuge to my family in the 1970s, and for this they will be eternally grateful. They became part of London’s mosaic society. As with many other immigrants at the time, they were welcomed by both the government and society. Immigrants were seen as beneficial to the country, they brought with them skills, and a willingness to work long hard hours to better their lives. They saw the UK as a safe haven, and respected the native population. At the time the British people, by and large welcomed them, and accepted that immigrants were good for both society and the economy.

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The Voice

Farron calls on Cameron to act to end “immeasurable suffering” of migrants

By The Voice | Sun 2nd August 2015 - 2:15 pm

Tim Farron has written to David Cameron to urge him to ensure that the UK takes its fair share of those poor, desperate, vulnerable people we’ve all seen on our tv screens. He wrote:

I am writing to you about the current humanitarian crisis in Calais and its impact here in the UK.

I am sure you agree that it is heartbreaking to see hundreds of desperate people subsisting in makeshift camps night after night, willing to risk life and limb in the hope of a better future while many in Kent and across the country see their daily lives hugely disrupted through no fault of their own.

I welcome your commitment yesterday to providing France with the resources needed to deal with the situation and am writing to seek assurances that alongside the necessary security measures, support will also be given to humanely process those seeking asylum, return those who have no right to remain, and ensure that, in line with international obligations, standards of welfare and accommodation are urgently improved.

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NewsHound

Tim Farron talks about Asylum and Immigration

By NewsHound | Sun 14th June 2015 - 12:55 pm

Last week Elizabeth Needham recorded some video footage of leadership candidate Tim Farron talking about asylum and immigration.

She’s happy for it to be shared, so, enjoy!

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NewsHound

LibLink: Kavya Kaushik: Britain’s immigration debate has taken a turn for the toxic

By NewsHound | Wed 22nd April 2015 - 1:33 pm

Ealing Southall Liberal Democrat candidate Kavya Kaushik has been writing for the New Statesman about the effect of the sort of rhetoric we’re hearing in the immigration debate.

She was annoyed by Evan Davis’ comments about Nick Clegg’s family background during his leader’s interview last week and recognised Nick’s obvious irritation:

The choice to fixate upon Clegg’s multicultural upbringing, suggesting it to be out of touch with “British” people, made for uncomfortable viewing. For centuries immigrants have been an integral part of the British working class. Within the context of the current immigration climate, it feels like further demonisation of BME people.

Davis’s intention was unlikely to be intentional racial discomfort, but Clegg’s furious reaction mirrored that of many children of migrants. Our Britishness is consistently questioned despite having lived in the UK for our entire lives. Casual racism is on the rise, particularly within politics. On the doorstep a BME canvasser is increasingly likely to hear “I don’t want your people here”, and worse. These experiences lead to racial sensitivity and passing comments questioning multiculturalism vs Britishness can be interpreted as a personal attack when coupled with modern attitudes to race in Britain.

Hang on! What was that?

On the doorstep a BME canvasser is increasingly likely to hear “I don’t want your people here”, and worse. 

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Linda Jack

Opinion: What’s worse than a watery grave?

By Linda Jack | Wed 22nd April 2015 - 11:55 am

The news this week has been dominated by the horrendous tragedies of over 1000 deaths in the Mediterranean. With the notable exception of the vile Katie Hopkins, this tragedy has moved the hardest hearts, not least because of the number of children who have died.

For me it’s far closer to home and I confess I have spent the last couple of days fighting back the tears. I have the enormous privilege of caring for two children who made that same journey. And the danger for them didn’t begin when they climbed into a rickety boat, it began as they crossed the Sahara, in cars carrying maybe 30 passengers, many hanging on to the outside, where if one of them fell off they would be left to die in the scorching sand. Or in the insanitary, cruel and overcrowded cells of a Libyan detention centre.  And then, having reached ‘safety’ sleeping rough and eating out of bins while all around you people are dying.

As a family we have heard the horrendous stories of the children who are now part of our family, neither of them knowing where their birth families are, both very clear that they were prepared to take the risk to get here because the alternative was worse. Both now lauded by their schools for being role models for other students with their diligence, good humour and determination to succeed.

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The Voice

LibLink: Tim Farron says the deaths this week are a wake-up call. We need a change of direction

By The Voice | Mon 20th April 2015 - 1:26 pm

Tim Farron MP speaks at the rallyIn an article for the New Statesman Tim Farron writes:

The tragic deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean this week must force us to change direction.

Immigration is one of the major issues of this election and Labour and the Conservatives continue to portray all immigrants in a negative light. But immigration is not an issue which can be solved by Britain on our own. Or by oversimplifying and stoking fears based on one stereotype. The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto will not ignore the plight of refugees playing a lottery with their own survival.

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Guy Russo

Opinion: Europe is the solution to Britain’s concerns about immigration, not the cause

By Guy Russo | Mon 20th April 2015 - 12:41 pm

 

That statement has perhaps never been as boldly underlined as it was this week, with the continent-wide consciousness being collectively appalled at the unfolding horror in the Mediterranean. The horrific events have mobilised a pan-European discourse of outcry in a way that other EU issues often fail to do, primarily because it highlights the need for European collaboration, and the human cost of our failure to do so. It is also perhaps because it underlines to us the extent to which Europe is viewed as a single entity, or collective, by the rest of the world.

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Paul Walter

UKIP’s support is based on irrational fear of the unknown, leading to unBritish and unChristian behaviour

By Paul Walter | Wed 15th April 2015 - 9:34 am

Channel 4 News Factcheck is a place I often go to when I need a bit of sanity. On immigration, they have an excellent post.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Sarah Teather: It’s clear our system of immigration detention isn’t working

By NewsHound | Thu 5th March 2015 - 4:00 pm

Sarah Teather has been writing for the Huffington Post in the wake of the report on immigration detention released the other day. She started with a shocking story:

One such occasion took place last July. I was sat in a committee room in the House of Commons, chairing the first evidence session of an inquiry into immigration detention. We were talking, via a phone link, to a young man who was being held in one of the giant detention centres next door to Heathrow.

He told us about how he had ended up in the UK. At the age of 16, he had been trafficked from his home on the Nigeria/Cameroon border to Hungary. He told us how he was “put in a basement, beaten, raped and tortured”. He managed to escape and then found himself in London, a stranger. Then he was detained.

I asked him how long he had been in detention. His answer caused those in the room to gasp.

“Three years”.

Three years he had been in detention, locked up not because he had broken the law but for immigration purposes. A young man who had been the victim of some horrendous abuse had arrived in the UK and instead of being given support and treatment, was locked away indefinitely.

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Caron Lindsay

“Uncontrolled mass immigration”, Nigel? You must be joking.

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th March 2015 - 1:50 pm

I guess I was lucky to survive my breakfast today. First of all, I almost choked on my Corn Flakes reading some of the tales on the “What’s your funniest canvassing experience?” post. Mark Smulian has a lot to answer for. And if your sides aren’t sore enough, Alex Wilcock has done a whole post recounting his tales from the doorstep. I might disagree with him on the worst by-election candidate ever, though.

Things got more serious, though. Hilarity turned to annoyance and shame when I saw Nigel Farage on BBC Breakfast going on about immigration. “Uncontrolled mass immigration” he kept saying. Now there’s a phrase redolent with demonising people, fear and stoking up resentment against people who come to this country to work. You know, those people without whom we wouldn’t have a National Health Service. Those people who make a significant net contribution to the wealth of this nation by paying their taxes. The way UKIP and Farage have both Cameron and Miliband dancing to their fraudulent tune is sickening and is not backed up by evidence. Just the other day, a study reported in the Independent showed that, contrary to the nonsense spread by UKIP, immigrants are not coming over here and taking our jobs.

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert writes … We must end indefinite detention for immigrants

By Julian Huppert | Tue 3rd March 2015 - 11:55 am

Immigration detention
Looking back over the Coalition Government, one of our great successes is putting an end to the routine detention of children for immigration purposes. In 2009, 1,119 children were locked up in immigration centres, nearly 500 of them were under five years of age.

Not only have we ended this practice, but in the Immigration Act we made sure that if any future government wants to undo our reforms, they’ll have to do it the hard way by passing an Act of Parliament.

But the issue of immigration detention doesn’t and shouldn’t stop there.

The UK is an outlier in the EU as the only country that doesn’t have a time limit on how long someone can be detained under immigration powers. Ireland has a time limit of 21 days, France 45 days, Belgium two months and Spain 60 days. Even Russia has a time limit, albeit of two years.

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Lord Roger Roberts

Lord Roger Roberts writes…A step towards abolishing the Azure Card

By Lord Roger Roberts | Tue 3rd March 2015 - 8:55 am

Azure cardLast November I wrote that we must abolish the Azure Card and secured a debate in the House of Lords to that effect.

For those who may be unaware, The Azure Card is a prepayment card provided destitute asylum seekers who require support because they are temporarily unable to leave the United Kingdom. It is a discriminatory and wholly inadequate system of support which the Red Cross – as well as many other refugee organisations have called to be abolished.

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Kirsten Johnson

Opinion: We are the world

By Kirsten Johnson | Mon 23rd February 2015 - 5:30 pm

At my United Reformed Church on Sunday the preacher was a young woman from South Africa. The two readers were from the U.S. and from Scotland. The English woman who led the prayers is married to a man of Pakistani origin. Two Australians served coffee, a German lady sat in front of me and a Swiss man across the aisle.

We are a global society, not just a global economy. We are the world.  Yes, the Lib Dems are pro-Europe and internationalist, and we should fly these colours high as these policies represent how our country actually is.

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