Comment: Corbyn gets it right on refugees

We must work together with our European colleagues to tackle the root causes of this crisis

 

I was encouraged to see Jeremy Corbyn spend last weekend visiting refugee camps in Calais and elsewhere, so he could witness first-hand the awful conditions that refugees endure every day.

When I visited Calais in August of last year, I was appalled by what Jeremy rightly called the ‘fetid’ state of the camp, whose population has now reached 3,000 refugees including many children. Six months of rain, snow and an expanding population have made what was already a desperate humanitarian situation much worse. 

So far the UK has largely stood apart from other European countries faced with exactly the same refugee crisis to deal with – the largest movement of refugees since the Second World War. It took months for the UK government to liaise properly with French authorities and to start making the security changes necessary to improve safety in Calais, and when they did respond it was too little, and too late.

The Channel tunnels for freight and passengers are still regularly disrupted and refugees are still dying while trying to get through this incredibly unsafe route. 

Rather than supporting attempts to have a coordinated EU response, David Cameron has, time and time again, positioned himself at the sidelines. Yes, the UK has an opt-out from EU asylum policy, but countries like Ireland which also have such an opt-out have supported, rather than jeered at, EU initiatives for emergency location of refugees from the worst-hit European countries.

Even when it comes to the no-brainer of better coordinating search and rescue, Cameron only abandoned his previous objections when he was forced to by public horror at the death toll in the Mediterranean.

In the next few months, we will see temperatures rise and seas calm, which means we could witness even more desperate families trying to make the perilous journey to Europe. We risk a repeat of Operation Stack on our roads and yet more casualties trying to perilously cross into our country under the Channel, and into other EU member states over the Med and through Turkey.

We must work together with our European colleagues to tackle the root causes of this crisis and bring peace and stability to Libya, Syria and Eritrea. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy lead, has been quietly but effectively making some progress here; sadly, the UK government has largely been conspicuous by its absence.

We also need to engage with attempts to relocate those refugees who are already here in the EU; and to improve security and safety in Calais, now effectively the UK’s border with France.

The Dover-Calais route is essential not just for the UK but for all of Europe, yet it has been left down to Labour politicians to try and work with our European partners to improve the situation, in the absence of UK government action. 

We need to acknowledge that the best – and only – way of responding to the refugee crisis is to work with other countries to solve it, and that the UK can do this by participating in, and trying to shape, EU initiatives. Cameron can act like a latter-day King Canute if he likes, trying to ignore developments in the rest of the world. Thankfully, on this issue Jeremy Corbyn’s feet are much more firmly on the ground.

Anneliese Dodds is Labour MEP for the South East of England

62 Responses to “Comment: Corbyn gets it right on refugees”

  1. Bradley B.

    There remains the impression that you regard these ”Muslim areas” as deserving of some special consideration or having some special status. That is part of our multicultural problem.

  2. Lamia

    Yes, obviously we need more young men who throw stones at schoolchildren, sexually attack women and threaten lorry drivers with knives. With any luck, they may bring some more ISIS reinforcements too:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/12120636/Islamic-State-setting-up-terror-training-camps-in-Europe-police-agency-warns.html?WT.mc_id=e_DM83549&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_2016_01_26&utm_campaign=DM83549

    You haven’t a clue, have you? The ‘compassionate’ open borders types already have the blood of hundreds on their hands, and yet they still don’t think it is enough.

    The only sane and relatively secure solution is for refugees to processed properly in camps near the zones they are fleeing from, with preference given to families. Most of these people are not refugees at all, just aggressive economic migrants. You refer to ‘many children’ among the migrants at Calais and yet the pictures of the storming of Calais harbour showed no children and no women among these ‘refugees’ – most of whom are found to not even be from Syria, instead mostly coming from North Africa.

    This must be the first case in history when the overwhelming majority of a wave of ‘refugees’ were not women, children and the elderly but young, able bodied men. Nor has it ever been accompanied by such a crime wave against people in the host countries. Let genuine refugee families in, and send the unaccompanied young men from non-war zones back to do something useful in their own countries rather than preying upon Europeans.

  3. Mike Stallard

    Excellent and I am sure Mr Corbyn will be really pleased to hear stuff like this.
    Now to join the human race once again: the Europeans especially the Italians, Greeks and Germans, ably assisted by the other countries which are being swamped by crowds of randy teenage boys want us to take a lot of their new chums. That is what they mean by international co-operation.
    Reading, as i do, the German der Spiegel and as I am sure you already know, accepting these randy teenage boys brings nothing but sadness and unhappiness. For all. Except, of course, the people traffickers.

  4. Cole

    Oh fine – lets just dump the problem on the French.

    Some of these folk will have good reason for wanting to come to the UK: they’ll have relations here, speak English etc. And of course the numbers are tiny compared to those who are trying to get to Germany.

  5. Cole

    These fake patriots who whine about immigration often can’t speak or write very good English.

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