Standing with Ukraine must mean standing with all refugees - Yorkshire Post Letters

Standing with Ukraine must mean standing with all refugees.

The open-hearted generosity of more than 200,000 UK householders in responding to the invitation to host Ukrainian families fleeing war is greatly encouraging but it is not matched by the negative posture of the government towards refugees in general.

By placing a requirement for refugees from Ukraine to apply for a visa – something no refugee should be obliged to do – the government is placing delays and barriers in the way of the natural inclination of the public to care for people in desperate need.

It is sadly no surprise, coming after decades of gradual harshening of the asylum system at the hands of this and previous governments, that a Home Office poised to keep asylum seekers at bay is now incapable of responding adequately to such an obvious and urgent need.

It’s no surprise particularly as this is happening at the very time that yet another level of persecution towards refugees is grinding its way into legislation in the form of the Nationality and Borders Bill, which passed its second reading.

By supposedly introducing ‘safe and legal routes’, the Bill is designed to counter the despicable networks of people-smugglers who profit from the near impossibility of asylum seekers’ journeys to the UK.

But according to every organisation working with refugees in the UK, it will do neither of these things because those ‘safe and legal routes’ are so limited that those who are unable to access them will simply be pushed into ever more desperate means to make their journey, giving the smuggler networks just another challenge to find ways of exploiting that desperation.

Worst of all, the bill seeks to delimit the responsibility of the UK to recognise the right of people to seek asylum based on how they travelled here – a cynical redefinition of the internationally understood meaning of the term ‘refugee’.

Recently working with the inspirational Refugee Community Kitchen in Calais, I encountered hundreds of people living in utter destitution, existing on scraps, sheltering in ragged tents in any corner they could find, denied the dignity of a place to wash, toilet, or sleep in safety.

People from Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Eritrea, fleeing war, just as Ukrainians are fleeing war.

A miniscule proportion of refugees arriving in Europe attempt to enter the UK.

Yet, contrary to the Government’s assertions, there is no obligation on people to claim asylum in the first ‘safe’ country they arrive at: anyone may claim asylum in any country they deem appropriate.