Sunday 16 July 2017

Government`s refugee policy a disgrace

It is extremely sad when the British government`s policy towards refugees can be accurately summed up as "out of sight, out of mind" (Refugee policy is wrong and short-sighted, 09/07/17). Cameron failed to "see the bigger picture", and ignorantly blamed the UK`s "pull factor" for the crisis (Stop our shameful retreat from the world and share the refugee problem, 23/08/15), rather than the obvious "push factors" existing in Eritrea, Syria, Yemen and Libya, where crimes against humanity are committed every day, and there has clearly been no improvement under May`s administration. One of the first acts by this so-called "compassionate Conservative" was to stress to the UN refugee summit last September that people forced to flee their home countries "should seek asylum in the first safe country reached". May`s "humanitarian" policy also includes encouraging Somalis to return home to a country where thousands of al-Shabab terrorists are based, and which is under severe threat of famine, with an estimated five million people already suffering because of acute food shortages.
 Britain is not alone in the "immoral neglect of its international responsibilities", as your editorial rightly says, with most of Europe, "one of the world`s richest regions", also to blame. It does seem, however, that it is in this country where there is least cause for optimism, especially judging by the "stirring choices of artwork" currently adorning the offices of Fox, Davis and Johnson (Three leading Brexit ministers chase the spirit of empire in their choice of art, 02/07/17). Harking back to the UK`s so-called "glorious past", awash as it was with slavery, piracy, looting and atrocities, does not augur well for a change in what is clearly a "shameful" attitude towards fellow human beings,and a policy of which we should all be ashamed.

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