Refugee Crisis in Europe

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holloway]

I myself wonder how many people have not drowned because of those policies, but, again, we shall have to differ.

We must return those who are not entitled to claim asylum to their countries of origin, and—as we heard from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—try to find mechanisms to help the very, very large numbers of refugees in the region. We must consider establishing migration centres in safe places outside the EU, or possibly within it, for those who are rescued or those who have arrived. I believe that, in the jargon, that is called “extraterritorial processing”. In 2003, the Labour Government presented their idea for “transit processing centres”. Those proposing such an offshore asylum strategy could also learn from what the Australians have done in Papua New Guinea.

There are millions of genuine refugees from Syria alone, plus millions of economic migrants from numerous countries, whom we must discourage, and those are not numbers that it will to be possible to accommodate through dispersal within Europe. Besides, Syria needs a regional solution; relocating people away from the region does not offer the long-term approach that it requires.

At some stage, we shall have to realise that big boys’ toys—that drones, lean men with unseasonal suntans and Viking moustaches, and fast jets—do not end wars. What ends wars, ultimately, is working on the politics, and sometimes that means going into partnership with some pretty unpleasant people. However, that is for another debate.

Let me say this in conclusion—Members will be relieved to hear that. If we do not act to break the link between a journey and a right to remain, millions of migrants may arrive on European soil over the next couple of years alone. Today, if we keep sending people in poorer or less stable countries the message that once they are picked up by the Royal Navy, or walk into Hungary, or reach a Greek island, they will have a ticket to a whole new life in Europe there and then, ever-growing numbers will come. Wouldn't you?

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument seems to be predicated on the idea that the fact that Australia has said no to boatloads of people has had the effect of stopping people going. Is he aware of the number of people who are continuing to drown while trying to get to Australia? Is there not just a vague possibility that the boats are not a pull factor, and that it is the need to flee for their lives that is making people take this risk? Operation Mare Nostrum was stopped in the Mediterranean because there was an idea that doing so would somehow stop people coming, but that simply was not true. People are dying and fighting for their lives; surely they deserve our protection.

[Mr Holloway]

They absolutely deserve our protection, and that is where I am coming from in this debate. We have to be hard-nosed and realistic. It is all very well to try to make oneself feel better, but we must do what is sustainable, moral and right in the long term.

Unless the message gets through to people in these countries, we are inviting hundreds of millions to seek a better life in Europe and Britain. Either we are a nation state or we are not. Either we are able to be serious about helping the many millions who are affected, or we are not. We should decide who comes into our country, not the German Government, and not the people smugglers. The message needs to be much clearer, or the drownings and the chaos will go on.

I completely understand the sentiments of those, here and in my constituency, who are demanding that something be done. We must do the right thing for the long term, in order to prevent the tides of death many of which we will never see in a newspaper. We need to resist the temptation to do what makes us feel better, and start coming up with some proper ideas that could solve the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is sobering to realise that one in every 122 people in the world is a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) might be surprised to learn that they are not just coming from Syria. People face political persecution in Pakistan and in Iran. Those coming to us today from Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are not a new phenomenon—the Huguenots, the Jews, the Ugandan Asians, the Vietnamese boat people and the Kosovans came before them. Every generation faces those who meet the test of being people who are

“outside their country and cannot return owing to a well-founded fear of persecution”.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the greatest groups of people persecuted across the world includes those of a Christian denomination or religious view. Does the hon. Lady accept that many of those who are trying to escape Syria have been given the ultimatum of convert or die? In other words, they are being asked to give up their Christianity and their beliefs. We need to respond to that welfare need, too.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman raises the point about the well-founded fear, but my point is that every generation faces the test that the 1951 convention sets us. When a person comes to us and says, “I am in danger, will you help me?”, how we answer defines us as much as it defines their future. As the hon. Member for Gravesham said, it is a moral question. When we signed the convention in 1951, nobody could have predicted the situation that we are in now, but the fact that we could not predict it does not absolve us of the responsibility to answer the question. We are not absolved when the people fleeing the murderous intent of ISIL ask, “Will you help?” Our answer should be yes. When people are fleeing sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing the repressive regime of Robert Mugabe, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing civil war in Sudan and Eritrea, will you help? Yes. How we answer says as much about us as it does about them, so when we quibble about numbers and qualify them by saying that we will take 20,000 but over a number of years, or perhaps that we will take not 20,000 but up to 20,000—

[Mr Holloway]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will give way very quickly, and only once.

[Mr Holloway]

So rather than quibbling, will the hon. Lady tell me how many people we should be taking in her constituency and for how long?

[Stella Creasy]

I shall come on to talk about Walthamstow and am happy to invite the hon. Gentleman, who need not come under cover, to see the welcome that we give to people in Walthamstow. It is not easy, but we do it because it says something about us as a country and a community that when people are at risk we answer the call. When the people of Germany have answered the call to the tune of 800,000, when the people of Sweden have answered the call by taking eight per 1,000 of population, that challenges us all in the UK.

Let us look at the camps, because the Government are specifying that we should take people from the camps alone. When we consider the figure of 800,000 taken by Germany, it is sobering to realise that Lebanon has taken more than 1.1 million people in a country of 4.5 million.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I am sorry, but I have taken a number of interventions.

Turkey has taken 1.9 million people. If we think that taking 20,000 over five years is big, we do not understand our own history or the scale of the challenge. The UK has taken just 1% of the world’s refugees. What does that say about us?

I know that answering that question is not easy, because we have answered it in Walthamstow. It is not an easy challenge to accept people and be able to integrate them. I am proud of the way that people in Walthamstow have responded to the situation in Calais. Many have gone there themselves with goods to help support people and show their solidarity. I am proud that that is not a one-off—we have set up our own migrant welcoming centre. Walthamstow means welcome; it is what we do in my community.

I know that it is a hard question to answer when the voices of the persecuted are sometimes quiet and vulnerable, by comparison with the other voices we hear, such as the headlines that say, “Halt the asylum tide now”, “Draw a red line under immigration or else” or “The swarm on our streets”, or calls for deployment of the Army against the people that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) has accepted may well be fleeing persecution. It is hard to hear their voices. We should also understand the consequences of not hearing their voices. We cut the funding for Operation Mare Nostrum, thinking that somehow that would stop the boats. The boats came anyway, and the lorries are still running.

Let us think about the people whose lives we have not been able to save, and of the contribution that they would have made to our world. Think of the men who might fail school exams or lose jobs and who we will not give visas to—men like Einstein, or the father of Steve Jobs. The people fleeing persecution have so much to contribute to our world, so when we answer the question “Will you help?” with a yes, we do everybody a benefit. Think of the doctors, engineers, writers and lawyers currently in those camps.

It is not the thought of life in Britain that is the pull factor. It is not the £35 a week we give people. It is not the misery of dealing with UK Border Force, or the threat that even if you are a victim of sexual violence we will lock you up in Yarl’s Wood. The pull factor is staying alive. The pull factor is being able to give your children the possibility of adolescence. That is why people are making that choice. There is no speech we can make here, no threat we can make to those boats and no lesson we can learn from Australia that will override the enduring wish of every parent to give their child that kind of future.

If we do not hear those voices, the question is not about them; it is about us. The problem is not refugees or migrants; the problem is politicians not doing their job. It is our job to ensure that the benefits of migration are equally distributed in this country. It is our job to ensure that we help those people who are fleeing persecution, and that is what we should do. Let us not be the problem; let us be the solution. If we can take 20,000 and there are 20,000 now, let us take the 20,000 now. Let us not quibble or qualify that; let us take them now. The Government accept that we can house these people, so let us do it now. Let us not make it an either-or with our European neighbours; let us help all those people. If we want to stop the boats and lorries, that is what we must do.

I want to make a final plea to the Home Secretary. Save the Children is putting out a charity single that has been set up by Caitlin Moran, Pete Paphides and Mat Whitecross. Will the Home Secretary please join me in calling for the VAT on that charity single to be waived so that the money can be used to help the refugees? The single is called “Help is Coming”. Let that be the message that comes from the House of Commons today, not the quibbling, quantifying and denying. Let us send the message that help really is coming.