We covered Tim Farron’s visit to Lesvos last week and his raising of the situation at PMQs. Now Tim writes of the experience for politics.co.uk.
At one centre I spoke to Armet from Iraq, who was staying in a UNHCR provided metal shelter for the night with his family. Armet told me that as he got off the boat in Lesvos his seven-year-old son asked him “Is ISIS here too?”
That little boy demonstrates the reality of this crisis. The right-wing press and lazy politicians would like us to believe these are people either coming to Europe for “the good life” or because they’re too impatient to wait for the chance of being selected as a refugee in a Middle Eastern camp.
Being on the ground, you are face to face with the reality. And the reality I witnessed is family after family escaping war, violence, extremism, constant fear, conscription, poverty with no hope of that situation changing any time soon.
We can not nor should we all visit Lesvos to see what is happening. But because we don’t the danger is that a humanitarian crisis on our doorstep may seem distant and unreal. Tim deserves great credit for bringing it home to us so forcefully.
Our government continues to turn its back on this situation, hoping that it will eventually go away. It won’t. In fact, it will get worse.
Since I left Greece more children have died in the waters between Turkey and Lesvos, more people have been injured, yet still they come. Winter is fast approaching, but rough seas are not enough to deter people fleeing for their lives.
This is Europe’s crisis and as a leading country in Europe it deserves the UK’s attention. We must act, and quickly.
That means accepting Save the Children’s plan to bring 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Europe to the UK, and opting in to the wider EU relocation scheme.
It means funding the reception centres and sending our world class civil servants to help them where we can. And above all it means acknowledging the value of every human life.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Violent Bonham Carter features on Fake or Fortune?
Have resignations led to a rethink?
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
Stefano Brunesci
Robert Doyle
Peter Martin
Simon
Ben Austin
16 Comments
Tim said earlier about Syria “More and more bombs are not the answer. Adding extra war will simply create a bigger stream of refugees”. This insults our intelligence and Tim has hardly any credibility on the refugee crisis if his solution is simply “less bombs”.
The General election in Turkey was last weekend. The AK party has a parliamentary majority. Mr. Erdogan may wish to change his status from a ceremonial and constitutional one to executive.
Turkey is not a full signatory to the United Convention relatiing to the status of refugees. Being a full signatory is a condition for being a full member of the EU. all the current members are.
THE UK had obligations under the Statelessnes Convention, which were withdrawn by the Labour government using secondary legislation to amend the Immigration Rules. The ministers involved should look in the mirror in the morning.
http://www.unhcr.org.uk/news-and-views/news-list/news-detail/article/urgent-action-needed-to-address-child-statelessness.html
Eddie Sammon, Tim Farron is absolutely correct that more bombs are not the solution in Syria. That solution would do nothing but spread more death and promote further waves of migration as people flee from the utter destruction of their country.
The solution to the refugee crisis, at least the solution for managing Europe’s part of it, is for the European Union to reassert control of its external border using a well-funded European border and coastguard service, streamline the movement of people already inside that frontier to prevent people from being trapped in places like Orban’s Hungary over the winter, and then operate a managed and fair asylum system where refuge applications are handled and decided on at the border rather than after months of travel through pretty much every hazard the world can muster short of rampant volcanism.
Longer term, the only way to make Syria safe again is of course to end the war. You don’t end wars by just sitting back and relying on strategic bombing to do the work of soldiers and diplomats. Hoping to repeat Yugoslavia and bomb it better is optimistic to the point of naivete in Syria, where the dictator’s power is not dependent on being able to prevent this and where his replacements are as bad if not worse. If we won’t put boots on the ground we need to back people who will, or elsewise get on with negotiating a climbdown with one major actor in the civil war.
We are not short of solutions. The only thing missing is the political will to enact any one of the options. Carpet bombing Syria is the easiest thing to do, because it makes the biggest noise while actually requiring the least from the political institutions of the UK and Europe. But I’m against using the armed forces as a smokescreen to hide political failure from view.
@Eddie Sammon
Do you think bombing people is the answer? I suggest that you are not in a position to talk about intelligence being insulted..
Very funny chaps, I’m sure if ISIS were approaching you that bombs would suddenly become the answer.
That, Mister Sammon, is a low remark unworthy of a real attempt to hold a discussion.
I can honestly and without a shadow of a doubt tell you that at no point, regardless of my proximity to an ISIS terrorist, would the policy currently pursued by NATO and Russia in Syria present itself to me as a reasonable response. And your assertion otherwise is an insult not only to my intelligence but to my moral integrity as well.
Bombs are not the answer. Real, coordinated and concerted action is the answer. I am not a pacifist, but that action must not be just bombs, because air power has limits. It must also not be limited to bombs, bullets and boots on the ground, because that is merely an eternal occupation which has limits of its own and a price too high to pay. It must involve the whole much-neglected toolbox of state building, diplomacy and development to restore peace of any sort to Syria and the surrounding region.
Bombing Syria is most definitely not the answer. In fact in my darker moments my preferred option would be for the UK do zero. That having been said, I don’t think that rose-tinted stuff about, ‘state building,’ and, ‘concerted action,’ is any more convincing really. I simply can’t see that there is enough of a civil society in Syria – in Yugoslavia there was (just) enough civil society for the place to move to a post-conflict statehood. (The idea that Yugoslavia was, ‘bombed better,’ is an outright insult to the people on the ground).
We do have broadly successful models from post WW2 reconstruction, but the question is whether they can be adapted to Middle East society. For as long as there is a sunni/shia split I’m not optimistic. A split that, incidentally is most certainly not something to be thrown at the feet of, ‘the West.’
I would of thought, having witnessed things at first hand the penny would have dropped and Tim would have realised that taking 3,000, 20,000 or 800,000 refugees isn’t going to solve the problem… The only solution is to address the problems on the ground in Syria and Iraq. Remember it is a massively simpler and cheaper logistics operation to take the aid to the people (in Syria) than it is to bring the people to the UK, which in turn means we can provide aid to more people…
T-J. Do you really think you can use diplomacy with Daesh? You can’t, they are fanatic barbarians who rape little girls and use horrific ways to maim, torture and kill.
Eddie Sammon. What would you suggest to solve the problem. That would be interesting?
T-J, apologies for my tone and I thank you for your thoughtful comments. My problem with the argument that “more bombs are not the answer” is that even the Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairperson says “The requirement for military force is clear”. Eventually, someone is going to have to use bombs and I worry that the sentiment of “more bomb are not the answer” is a quasi-pacifist statement. Either that, or liberals have decided that bombs are no use and only bullets are good going forward.
I have read reports from the likes of Brookings and Chatham House and I cannot see why we can’t commit to military action against ISIS in Syria and use economic sanctions against Russia, Iran and the Syrian government to show that we are not on the side of Assad. I don’t agree with the argument that we either use military action against Assad and the Islamists or we use it against no one.
When I saw David Cameron’s last plan for no-fly zones, which Labour MPs seem to have almost demanded, I changed my opinion from pro Syria strikes to abstain. I see a no-fly zone as fraught with danger without the co-operation of Russia and Obama also seems to agree. I was also against bombing Assad in 2013, partly because Putin was sending warships to the Mediterranean, showing his full backing for Putin even then. I am not just a frustrated hawk.
I see the US and France making a contribution to strikes against IS in Syria and there is either “secret information” or something isn’t making sense. I don’t understand the logic that “we can’t do much, so we shouldn’t do anything”.
A lot of things aren’t making sense. Labour and Tories recently made out that implementing “safe zones” in Syria was easy and didn’t even address the issue of Russia non-co-operation.
I hope this explains my main frustrations. Best regards
Nigel Hunter, please see this post to answer your question.
The best way of helping the refugees is to beat ISIS and that isn’t going to happen by diplomacy. By all means take in more refugees and help them as much as we can, but the end of this mess can only come about when ISIS are beaten on the battle field. To dismiss the use of force against an army of rampaging savages is just plain daft.
@ T-J
” I can honestly and without a shadow of a doubt tell you that at no point, regardless of my proximity to an ISIS terrorist, would the policy currently pursued by NATO and Russia in Syria present itself to me as a reasonable response.”
In a nutshell, you would stand by exuding your moral superiority whilst allowing your wife and daughters to be raped and slaughtered in front of you.
You have obviously never served, or been confronted with the realities of the real nasty violent world out there. Whatever intellectual and moral superiority you choose to claim, when the doo doo hits the fan, your basic genetic defence mechanism of fight or flight will kick in, and you will either run away leaving your family to their fate, or you will stand and fight.
Eddie Sammon, I understand the frustration. With the governments involved vaccilating between helpless pseudo-pacifism and useless displacement activity, it is a difficult time to watch.
Anne and Raddiy.
Go over what I wrote again.
You’ll notice that I go as far as to say that I am not a pacifist, and that the solution to this problem will require an effective response to the violence of ISIS. That the powers of Europe and America will need to either put boots on the ground, back those who will or cut a deal with one side in the civil war to end it. Which translated means swallowing both our pride and most of our principles and doing a deal with Assad’s backers that lets him stay in power.
As I say, no shortage of potential solutions, just a huge lack of political will to implement any one of them.
And I repeat for your benefit, Raddiy – the policy pursued by NATO and Russia, of an air war unsupported by any action on the ground, would never present itself to me as an acceptable solution, regardless of ISIS’ proximity to me or anyone I cared about.
whilst the whole situation needs tackling at source, we also have a responsiblity as fellow members of the human race to do what we can to relieve the situations in Europe as people flee for peace and security.
working with the EU for solutions to the crisis is a start.
each one of us, as well as making our views known on the cause, effect and possible solutions, is to make sure the cuncil area we are living in is engaging (unpleasant though that may be for some, they aren[‘t going to get killed or tortured in the process) with the Government on taking in resettled syrian refugees, and getting on with it before winter settles in and people freeze.
it isn’t going to solve the whole problem, it isn’t going to help everyone, but it could
cont.
but it could be the way to help something like 50 families. Creating safe and legal routes is the best way of stopping the trade for people smugglers profitting out of all of this, and stopping the need for dangerous journeys.