Britain's Migrant Problem
Today, (September 4th), the Prime Minister announced that Britain would take "thousands" of refugees fleeing the crisis in Syria which began with anti-government protests in early 2011. But as images surface this morning of a 2-year-old Syrian refugee's body washing up on a beach in Turkey, is it a matter of too little, too late?
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The refugee crisis in the middle east has seen the largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. More than 4 million Syrian people have fled Syria since the conflict began, with 7.5 million having fled their original home, but stayed within Syria. Of the more than 10 million men, women and children seeking refuge in a number of countries around the world, Britain, the prosperous former centre of the world which has a GDP per capita more than 26 times that of Syria (UN, 2013) has taken just over 5000 refugees.
"5000? That's quite a few," I hear you say! False. Of that 5102, just 216 of those refugees were resettled by the government. The other 4886 refugees, who fled Syria leaving their jobs, homes, friends and lives behind in the dust of the civil war, were only accepted once they made their own ways to the UK, when their asylum requests were accepted by the UK Border Force. Now what does this say about us as a nation? We made nearly five thousand, poor, defenceless men, women and children fleeing from a war which has killed around 300,000 people, walk the >2500-mile journey through 8 countries to reach us. What does that make us?
David Cameron has promised that we will take "thousands" more refugees from the UN camps in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and in Syria itself other countries in the region because Britain has a "moral responsibility" to respond to the crisis. Speaking in Lisbon, the Prime Minister's promise comes after masses of criticism from all sides of Westminster and beyond as Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby all called on the Prime Minister to do more to help the estimated 10 million displaced Syrians. A petition to the UK government calling for Britain to accept more asylum seekers from the crisis, has reached nearly 400,000 signatures (at time of publishing) which pushes it 400 times over the limit demanding a government response and 4 times over the limit for a parliamentary debate to be considered on the subject.
But is it too late? The crisis in Syria has been running for four-and-a-half years, and Cameron is only now saying that we have a "moral responsibility" to do something. Finally something has given in the mind of the man who has been running this country for the duration of the period. Whether you subscribe to a belief system or not is it not universally recognised that we should help those in need? So where has Britain been? If we as a nation resettled 65,000 of these desperate human beings, we would see just 100 extra people in each constituency. 100. I tell you know that neither you, nor I, nor the NHS, or our schools, or our buses, or our trains, or any other petty reason anyone could give for not letting these devastated people into the country, would notice those 65,000 people. Do you know the people who would notice? The 65,000. These destitute mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. They would notice. They would notice that there are people out there who care for them, that there are people who want to help in any way that they can, to help other human beings who have lost everything. These 100 extra people in your constituency would be so grateful, and it would cost us nothing.
Britain would join thousands of voices offering care to those who have the least in our world, like the 10,000 Icelanders who have offered their homes to Syrian refugees, or the thousands who waited at Frankfurt train station, in Germany to welcome the trains of Syrian migrants arriving there with donations of money, food and water for those arriving. Britain would show that it has a heart, that the people of Britain will not stand for the millions who are without a home across the middle east.
And to anyone who talks down the crisis. To anyone who says we are "full." To anyone who says that we shouldn't take any migrants. I put this to you. What if the civil war was here in Britain? What if our riots in 2011 had turned into a civil war like their's did? What if half of our of our population had fled to UN refugee camps on the south coast of England, across the border in Ireland and in France? What if it was your friends, or your brother, or your mother, or your daughter that was begging any country of the world to give you a safe place to stay, free from persecution? What if it was you? What would you want those countries to do? To turn a blind eye? Or to lend a hand?
Britain, these are not migrants. These are refugees. These are not people who have something, wanting a better life elsewhere. These are people who have nothing, wanting to live. Somewhere.
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