Being a refugee is not a crime

I have heard plans that our government intends to crack down on those crossing the channel in boats.

Let me remind people that I am also in favour of this and deporting those crossing the channel to Rwanda. But only once we have an asylum system that works and that involves decent safe and legal routes to come here to claim asylum

The sad fact is that, as seen in the video, we do not have safe and legal routes for them to come.  

I suspect that the government is allowing a backlog of asylum applications to build up so that it can claim that the system is being swamped and that the action that is needed is to ignore claims and deport asylum seekers.  Yes, they are to process certain applicants quickly, and so long as this is done in a fair manner, that is a good idea. 

But let us look at how thousands of Afghans who helped British forces remain stranded by by inaction by our government and many journalists who face persecution are also being left as well. Last month, only 22 Afghans had been resettled in UK under a ‘pathway’ to help vulnerable refugees and many who have fled to Pakistan face injustice there. 

I am proud of how we welcomed Ukrainian refugees to our nation, many of whom were in safe nations outside Ukraine.  I am ashamed how we are not doing this for others. 

Edit - another video has been published showing that there is no safe and legal route for many asylum seekers to get to our nation.