Ukrainian Refugees

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank all my constituents who have lent their names to this important petition and the countless others who have contacted me, either to urge me to speak up for Ukrainians fleeing from this devastating conflict or with offers to open their homes to families in need of sanctuary.

The British people have responded to this crisis with characteristic generosity, empathy and hospitality; not so their elected Government. As countries across Europe have thrown open their doors to the millions of Ukrainians forced from their homes, the UK alone has refused to lift visa requirements. Last week, we learned that while Poland has welcomed more than 1 million Ukrainians since the conflict began, the Home Office has approved visas for just 300. Ireland, a country with a population that is a fraction of the size of ours, has already accepted more than 5,000 Ukrainians. The Government are now promising major improvements in the numbers of people being admitted to the UK and the speed with which applications are being processed. Given the recent and unforgivable betrayal of Afghan nationals who risked their lives to support British forces in Afghanistan, that is a promise in which we can place very little confidence, and it is simply not good enough.

Let us be clear: desperate Ukrainians are no more migrants than the thousands of Yemenis, Afghans and Iraqis who this Government have left stranded in Calais. They are refugees and none of them has the luxury of time. As such, I wholeheartedly endorse the petition’s objectives. The time has come to waive all visa requirements for people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine and establish safe and legal routes into Britain. History will not judge kindly a Government that fail the Ukrainian people in their time of greatest need, but sadly, I have little confidence in the Home Office to do the right thing. There is surely no politician in recent memory whose career has been defined by such cruelty, indifference to suffering and gross incompetence as this Home Secretary, and I am afraid that the rot runs deep.

When the Minister was challenged on the gross inadequacy of the support available to people fleeing Putin’s war on Ukraine, he had the audacity to say that refugees could apply for seasonal worker visas so that they could come to the UK to pick fruit. In any other Government, such an appalling statement would undoubtedly result in a letter of resignation being handed to the Prime Minister, but this Minister could not even bring himself to apologise—shame, shame, shame. I hope that instead of parroting the same tired lines we have heard too often from the Dispatch Box, the Minister takes this opportunity to reflect on what has been said today, recognises how badly his Department has misjudged the mood of the public and mistreated innocent victims, and returns to his colleagues in Government with a loud, unequivocal message that refugees are welcome here.

I hope that the response to this crisis begins with a step change in how we treat all those displaced by war, persecution and climate breakdown. For far too long, the Conservatives have thrown up walls to those in desperate need of a safe place and whipped up hatred in the media for their own political advantage. Even now, when confronted by images of human suffering that none of us ever thought to see again in Europe, the Home Secretary persists in her efforts to turn Great Britain into fortress Britain, including her shameful attempts to deploy the Royal Navy to stop crossings in the English channel. However, it is not too late for Ministers to recognise the error of their ways. It is not too late for the Government to finally begin to honour their moral obligations and lead the way in humanitarianism, instead of callousness and cruelty, and it is not too late to tear up the Nationality and Borders Bill before it becomes law, which will inflict such immense suffering on those who are in greatest need.