Yorkshire must stand firm in its proud tradition of welcoming refugees - Enver Solomon

That’s why it’s so important to look beyond the headlines.

Yorkshire has a proud tradition of welcoming people facing persecution, and has done for centuries. When far-right groups try to whip up hatred towards people seeking asylum in the county, they are running entirely counter to values of tolerance and support which have stood the test of time.

In the small market town of Wetherby, for instance, there is what is called the Huguenot Arch. No-one really seems to know its origins, but it is believed it was constructed in the early 1800s to mark the presence in the town of Huguenots who had fled religious persecution in France - in which thousands of people were slaughtered - in the 17th century.

One could say that it made sense for the UK to provide sanctuary for people escaping terror from essentially a neighbouring country. Today’s refugees come from further afield - Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Syria and Sudan, for instance.

But Yorkshire’s welcome has never been defined by simple geography and more by need: few people fleeing execution, torture or bombing make precise calculations about where they want to end up, other than hoping and praying for the safety and support which the county has provided for centuries.

The Bradford Kindertransport Hostel provided sanctuary for Jewish children fleeing Hitler.

Sheffield became home in the late 1800s for Jews escaping the Russian pogroms, as did Huddersfield and many other parts of the county.

Yorkshire towns provided refuge for Basque children during the Spanish Civil War. Belgians made Middlesbrough home during the First World War.

Research by Sheffield City Council shows that the city, the first City of Sanctuary in the UK, has seen people from Vietnam, Somalia, Yemen and many other countries come to the area over the last few decades.

Some stay in the area, some do not. Most Belgians, for instance, returned home after the end of the First World War. It’s less easy for someone from Afghanistan, living in fear of the Taliban and after decades of conflict in their country, to contemplate returning home, as devastating as that must be for them.

How must it feel for those from Afghanistan who are now living in Yorkshire while waiting for their case for asylum to be heard, to now face the prospect of being besieged and targeted by the venom of far-right groups whose only intention is to sow division, to create fear and ultimately to peddle their racist ideology?

The same goes for those from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Iran, the countries from which refugees are arriving by boat - unable to get to the UK in any other way.

There’s no visa you can apply for because your home has been bombed, your family is under threat or you face torture.

No ‘safe route’ to get to the UK, despite good reasons to want to be here - family links, community, or just the simple fact that most people here are tolerant, welcoming and want to help those in need.

It’s important too not to be deceived. Everyone wants to ‘stop the boats’, but government plans to do so just won’t work and will cost us all a fortune, never mind the morally dubious nature of a policy that treats people like criminals, locking them up in and then banishing them to countries such as Rwanda.

And while the numbers coming to the UK on boats are significant and the asylum system is in a crisis of the government’s making, this issue does not in the context of all the other problems we face, merit the headlines and hysteria which are the food and drink of those on the far-right who seek to exploit fear and hatred of those from other countries.

In a world of uncertainty, one thing remains clear: the majority of people of Yorkshire, just as the majority of the UK, will support those who come to this country seeking support and refuge.

We know from our work with refugees and those who volunteer with us how welcoming the people of Yorkshire are to those who have lost everything.

The task for us all is to stand firm in the face of the far-right exploitation of the Government’s mismanagement of the humanitarian challenge facing the country at this difficult time in our history.

Enver Solomon is the chief executive of the Refugee Council, a charity working with refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK.