Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

The Prime Minister said that,

“we must use our head and our heart”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/2015; col. 23.],

as he set out a staggeringly inadequate response to the refugee crisis, and then threw in news of drone attacks on individual UK citizens in Syria. The drone attacks were neither discussed or ratified by Parliament but were described in the Statement as an “act of self-defence” to kill a named individual in Syria who had been intending to murder British citizens. While that is not the subject of tonight’s debate, it deserves more interrogation on another occasion. But what is important for this debate is the conflation of these two issues. In conflating them, the Prime Minister chose to evoke fear of the “other”. It appears that the head of the Prime Minister was trying to divert a nation whose heart had been broken by the sight of three year-old Aylan Kurdi dead on a beach.

In the last several days, without going out of my way at all, I have been privy to a number of conversations about refugees from Syria. A couple with young children discussed how they would manage if they opened their home to refugees, how long they might stay, whether they would have to teach them English and be responsible for administering their immigration status and so on. At no point did they consider the discomfort to them or their young family, the cost of putting food on the table or the enormous burden of living with people in a traumatic state, estranged from their birthplace. They were looking at how, not whether, to open their homes to strangers in need. In another, a small group of teenagers studying to be professional chefs discussed how they could set up a soup kitchen. These young people were planning recipes that would give Syrian families far from home the comfort of the familiar. They worked out how they would raise money, shop, cook and serve on a rota, because this would be in addition to their studies. They were looking at how, not whether, to feed the influx.

Then there is my own mother, a refugee from Europe given safe haven in this country with my grandmother while her father hid in occupied Vichy. Perhaps, in the tradition of the House, I should here declare my interests. My family have been political migrants, economic migrants and refugees no less than six times in four generations. My mother, her parents and a single cousin were what was left of her family after World War II. They were granted asylum; others were not. She has donated and she has petitioned, but what does a woman in her late 70s do when her Government do not provide for this generation’s refugees the same safe haven that saved her life and the absence of which cost others theirs? She is looking to her Government to work out how, not whether, to save a life.

To find the balance of head and heart, the Prime Minister must use his head to fulfil what is in the hearts of the British people, who cannot unilaterally save, feed or welcome refugees into their homes but rely on Her Majesty’s Government to create mechanisms that enable them to do so. I share with the noble Lord, Lord James, a desire for action, although his anxiety about Islamic contagion is unfounded. We are the second largest bilateral donor in the region, and, as the Minister set out in her opening remarks, the Government are committed to a long-term political solution that might one day stem the flow. Neither of these approaches, however, is the answer for the tens of thousands of refugees who are, right now, in dangerous transit from somewhere to nowhere.

In setting out what he considered to be a comprehensive approach of causes and consequences, the Prime Minister said nothing about separating foreign policy from our arms trade; nothing about working for a pan-European approach; nothing about destroying the market for human trafficking gangs by providing safe passage; and nothing about our own responsibilities for military interventions and chosen alliances that have contributed to destabilising the region.

The Prime Minister’s Statement had no apology for the language of swarming; nor was there an explanation for why we operate a “Not in my backyard” refugee policy. It failed also to address UK citizens whose families and friends come from the conflict zones, who feel alienated by the Government’s response and worry about what it says about their own place and identity in this country. We need a comprehensive approach, but this is not it.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, that this is an excuse not to take more migrants. The resettlement figure is simply too little over too long, and in refusing to accept resettlement from Italy, Greece and Hungary and using their opt-out to avoid signing up to a common EU plan, the Government are simply adhering to the ideological prejudice, or xenophobia, of those who have this Government on the back foot about Europe and immigration.

These refugees, who have escaped violence in their own country, risked their lives on their journeys and find themselves pressed against both the literal and metaphorical razor-wire fences of implacable European nations, including our own, are no less deserving and arguably more vulnerable than those already settled in camps. They are—as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby said—equal, unique, precious and human.

UK citizens in their thousands are having conversations up and down the country like those I alluded to, from the powerful and privileged to those with very little who are willing to share that very little with desperate strangers in need. Our citizens are not bleeding-heart liberals but pragmatic and practical. They do not want this crisis on their conscience. We said “Never again”; this is “Again”, so until we have filled up every bedroom that is offered, we have not done enough.