In my opinion, the way to reduce the impact of traffikers over the channel is not to use policies that go against the UN refugee convention and to use divisive and racist rhetoric, rather provide a legal way for refugee applications, then we can have the debate about numbers. There is currently no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum – but they can only apply for asylum when they are here, yet everybody has the right to apply for asylum (there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker).
The Conservative approach to refugees seems to correctly open the borders to white refugees (Ukraine) but to close them for non-white refugees. The argument that people should apply in the first “safe” country is fundamentally flawed, it goes against the refugee convention for good reason – if all refugees settled in the first safe country, it would massively increase the potential for similar problems in that country. Also, why shouldn’t an English speaking refugee apply for asylum in an English speaking country?
The right-wing press give us the impression that UK is the most popular destination but in reality most refugees apply in neighbouring countries, Syrian refugees make up almost 20% of Lebanon’s population, Jordan houses 3 million. In Europe, we have less refugees than Italy, Sweden, France, etc despite being more populous. Germany house 1.15 million (0.31%), while we house 0.13 million (0.18%)
Lineker’s tweet (on his personal twitter account, not on a BBC programme) gave his opinion on the current government rhetoric, an opinion I share (but people are welcome to disagree). The Conservative governments lead by Johnson, Truss and Sunak have been using divisive language and have been blaming foreigners for their own mistakes. The kind of rhetoric that precedes some of the worst moments in world history. I’m not a Tory (obviously), but I can respect (and disagree with) Cameron, Major and Hague’s conservative governments, but its very difficult to respect the recent incarnations.
