THERE is no doubt that we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, a country devastated by generations of war now abandoned to medieval and, yes, evil, zealots, regardless of what some commentators might say.
To say the withdrawal has been shambolic is too kind to this Tory Government, which is more interested in getting into the holiday spirit than the Dunkirk spirit. If it’s not cocktails on the beach instead of lifesaving phone calls, it’s piles of unopened emails as MPs across the UK desperately try to arrange safe passage for those fleeing our mess.
This isn’t the first refugee crisis the UK has played a major role in creating. In fact, as the sixth-largest exporter of arms worldwide the UK has had at least fingerprints on many of the mass displacements we have seen across the globe.
With that in mind, you would think the decent thing to do would be to offer sanctuary to those fleeing our bombs or the chaos we have helped cause. But no. Instead the Tory Government is pushing ahead with some of the nastiest and cruellest pieces of legislation I have ever seen. At this point I am no longer surprised but that doesn’t lessen the revulsion and sadness I feel when I think about the implications of this for those seeking safety for themselves and their families.
The UK takes a paltry number of refugees. Only 0.26% of the population are refugees or asylum seekers, fewer than three in every thousand. When you compare that to places such as Germany (1.5%), Sweden (2.6%), Turkey (5%) or Lebanon (19.5%) you can see that for all the racist dog whistles of “invasions” and “hordes” we really aren’t even doing our fair share.
Our SNP city government in Glasgow is calling on the UK Government do more for refugees and asylum seekers in the city and SNP councillors have stated they are willing to take many more people in. But they need the resources to adequately house and support them.
This is a role that should be carried out by the local authority but has been handed out to private companies who house vulnerable people in substandard properties for profit.
The Nationalities and Borders Bill will look to criminalise those who knowingly enter the UK without permission. Let’s think about that for a minute, it will be illegal to arrive in the UK seeking asylum if you haven’t got all your paperwork and permission in place.
So, in the midst of a civil war, with no access to the internet, no UK consular services and the Home Office not even opening emails that they do get, how is anyone supposed to achieve this?
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The situation in Afghanistan is putting the plight of refugees into living rooms up and down the UK every night and people can see with their own eyes, the absolute desperation of their situation.
People were willing to hold on to aeroplanes to escape and this piece of legislation is threatening them with four years in jail if they arrive here without all their documentation in place.
The Tories are demanding they use “legal routes” which they are slamming shut at the same time, pulling up the drawbridge on Little England while the rest of the devolved nations demand more support for those fleeing persecution.
My team and I have heard some unspeakable stories from people and we wrote the letters, gathered the information and made the case for their lives to be saved.
But every so often an email stops you in your tracks. Robyn in my team was helping a family in Kabul whose loved ones live in my constituency and she asked if they had photographic ID because the Home Office had asked for this.
They didn’t because they’d fled leaving everything behind. Instead, the mum took photos of every member of the family one by one.
The faces of the adults we both found hard to look at because we knew their lives were in danger and that it was partly because of the UK Parliament in which I sit. But the kids. Looking at their wee faces, knowing the horrors the Taliban has meted out to Afghan children, was almost too much to bear.
And all the time we were all conscious that we were feeling this distress from our nice comfy seats in our nice safe homes.
I am acutely aware when I say to people here “imagine this was your family fleeing” that it’s almost impossible for them to do that. Lucky us.
Not only will this bill criminalise those seeking refuge, but it could land anyone with enough humanity to help them, in jail for up to 10 years. Imagine that, a jail sentence for not letting someone drown in the sea, human decency to be outlawed in the UK.
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