I am writing to add my voice to the growing chorus, including cross-party calls from many of your colleagues, that seek to challenge the disgraceful changes being proposed in the recent immigration paper being put forward by the Home Secretary, in particular as they affect refugees and asylum seekers.
I agree that current policy needs urgent updating but share the repulsion felt across the land at the suggestion that we should differentiate between deserving and undeserving based on how they travelled to these shores rather than upon their need for safe haven as fellow human beings. Those fleeing war, terror and persecution are ordinary human beings suffering through trauma and situations most of us can barely imagine and in such circumstances, like any of us would, will do whatever it takes to find protection for themselves and loved ones. They often do not have much choice about how they arrive here and are driven by desperation and despair.
Denying those that have been unable to come through so-called illegal routes or because they have come through other ‘safe’ countries shows a breathtaking lack of humanity and compassion and is a stain on UK values and its proud history of offering help and sanctuary and the prospect of a better life to those fleeing danger.
