MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants
Debate between Pete Wishart and Seamus Logan(2 days, 2 hours ago)
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Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
When I saw the motion on the Order Paper, I had to look twice as I was absolutely certain that it must be a Reform motion, but then I remembered that they do not get Opposition days. The motion is indeed in the name of the Conservative party. For all this “I will never work with Nigel Farage” and so on that we hear from the Conservative leadership, they are now literally indistinguishable from Reform, with their antipathy towards asylum seekers, immigration and human rights now defining these new “Reformatives”.
The Conservatives are responsible for the crisis that we are currently confronting in the asylum system, having created huge, outstanding backlogs from their time in office that required the use of facilities such as those at Bicester. I know very little about the situation in Bicester, so I am not going to comment on the particularities, but when the Government are dealing with asylum seekers, they are absolutely right to try to ensure that there is equity across the whole of the United Kingdom, so that towns and cities like those in my constituency are not left to accommodate the masses of asylum seekers that we currently have. It is right that every constituency must play its part in trying to clear up the mess that was bequeathed by the Conservatives. The last place where this “not in my backyard” principle should apply is when we are dealing with real people’s lives.
There is blanket opposition to accommodation for asylum seekers right across the United Kingdom, and that has been created by the culture, climate and the language that is used just now when we come to describe asylum seekers. Some of the language that I have heard from Members on the Conservative Front Bench and in some of the contributions by Conservative Members is simply appalling: demonising, othering and trying to present whole communities as deviants—sexual deviancy and the rest. I find that absolutely unacceptable. It is no wonder that communities are really upset about the prospect of people coming into their constituencies.
Seamus Logan
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I agree with everything he says. I note that the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), chose not to use the word “illegal”. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is anathema to see the word “illegal” in this motion, because there is no such thing as an illegal migrant?
Pete Wishart
No one in this world is illegal—[Interruption.] I hear chuntering from the Conservative Front Bench as usual. People are fleeing for their lives from situations across the world. They are fleeing from oppression—
EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK
Debate between Pete Wishart and Seamus Logan(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Pete Wishart
This hon. Member more than agrees with the hon. Lady and thoroughly endorses what she says. It is not just Ynys Môn or Wales; every part of this United Kingdom has been impacted and hurt by this crazy project.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a humorous speech about bananas and sausages that is making me hungry. Yesterday, the new Prime Minister spoke of wrong turns going back as far as the 1980s. There is a wrong turn he could do something about, because the EU reset that the previous Prime Minister promised was a disaster. He gave away 12 years’ access to our waters in Scotland in return for very little. In fact, when the coastal and fishing growth fund was disbursed, there was a pittance for Scotland. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if the Prime Minister is serious about undoing wrong turns, he should have the courage to do something about Brexit?
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he brings us right up to date in the debate about Brexit. I listened carefully to the Prime Minister yesterday and what he had to say about European Union membership. I want to come on to that because we are at an important juncture. We have new opportunities to go forward, and I hope that this new Labour UK Government make the right choice. I will come to that, so I ask my hon. Friend for his patience, which I know he will be able to supply me with.
I want to get back to the economics. It is now estimated that GDP is anything between 2% and 8% lower than if we had remained in the European Union. The Office for Budget Responsibility suggests a 4% reduction in productivity, and Goldman Sachs estimates that the UK economy is around 6% smaller than it would otherwise have been. I want to be clear: that does not mean that Britain suddenly became 8% poorer on the morning of 24 June 2016. Of course, Britain continued to grow, and we have experienced some economic growth. The argument is that the UK has grown less than it otherwise would have done. Brexit was never going to be a spectacular economic crash. If anything, it is more insidious than that. Brexit is more akin to a slow puncture. The economy keeps growing, the car keeps moving forward, but the driving gets tougher as we negotiate in a harsher environment.