Refugee crisis

[paula.mcewan]

The UK government is making a huge issue out of the fact that refugees keep coming in ‘small boats’ across the English Channel. They bemoan that it’s costing £6 million per day to accommodate them. This is a problem that’s entirely manufactured by the government. First, because the only reason refugees are coming in ‘small boats’ is because the government has refused them entry by other safe means. So many lives could have been saved and could still be saved, if only refugees could apply safely for refugee status. This avenue has been denied by the government. Second, because if the Home Office had it’s house in order, refugees would be processed within a few weeks – not years – of arrival. Thus avoiding the cost and despair of putting them in the cost and anguish of sub standard accommodation. Let’s not forget that something like 90% of refugees are legally eventually permitted to stay. The result of the government’s incompetence (?)is that refugees from war, torture, persecution and death are treated like prisoners, to be sent to container ships/cheap and dodgy rooms until deportation. At huge cost to the taxpayer apparently (that’s another subject). I’m just leading up to this point: if a so-called ‘liberal democracy’ is incapable of treating refugees with compassion, is it a system worth supporting? Another point – who profits from this inhumane treatment of refugees? Here’s a clue – not you or me. (It’s given that it doesn’t profit the refugee.) And finally, I cannot help but compare the government’s treatment of today’s refugees with capitalism’s historic treatment of slaves, servants and workers.
Paula

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