What’s missing is any semblance of balance, compassion, or fact-based context.
This week, the Sun published one of its classic “Sun Says” opinion columns, once again resorting to the tired scapegoating of migrants and asylum seekers arriving in the UK. The piece opens with a swipe at Home Office staff, branding it part of a “woke brigade” that has, in the paper’s view, stood in the way of curbing illegal migration.
It goes on to praise the chancellor Rachel Reeves for threatening job losses in the Home Office unless migration-related cost savings are made, all while reducing people seeking asylum to burdens on the state and invoking the familiar image of Britain as a “paradise of benefits.”
“Unless Labour ends the golden ticket to the El Dorado paradise of benefits, free housing and illegal work, that hotel bill will continue to rise,” it reads.
What’s missing, unsurprisingly, is any semblance of balance, compassion, or fact-based context.
Let’s start with the fundamentals. People seeking asylum are not simply crossing borders for an “El Dorado” of luxury, they are, in many cases, fleeing war, torture, and persecution. These are human beings seeking safety and dignity in the face of unimaginable hardship.
Take Syria, a country devastated by civil war. Over 6.8 million Syrians have fled their country, according to the Refugee Council. But contrary to the Sun’s implication that the UK bears an unfair burden, most of these refugees have found shelter in countries far less wealthy than Britain. Turkey, for example, is the biggest refugee hosting country in the world, hosting around 3.7 million Syrian refugees. And yet, by February 2021, the UK had resettled just over 20,000 Syrians under its Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, a fraction of the global total.
The Sun’s depiction also ignores the many contributions that refugees and asylum seekers make to British society. Such as over 1,200 medically qualified refugees being on the British Medical Association’s database. Helping one of these professionals retrain to practice in Britain costs around £25,000, far less than the £200,000 – £250,000 price tag for training a new doctor. In a country facing chronic staff shortages in the NHS, this is not a cost burden, it’s a common-sense investment (and isn’t it supposed to be the right that are champions of common sense?)
Children of asylum seekers are also playing positive roles in UK schools, helping to build vibrant, diverse communities and paving the way for integration.
And then there’s the UK asylum system itself, a tightly controlled and complex bureaucracy. Gaining asylum in Britain is far from easy. Applicants must meet strict evidentiary thresholds, often while dealing with trauma and legal hurdles. Yet despite these barriers, 76 percent of initial decisions in the year to June 2022 resulted in grants of asylum or other protection, as statistics by the Refugee Council show. In other words, the majority of applicants are found to have genuine claims.
But, sigh, these stories are rarely told in the populist press. Instead, we get fear-driven narratives suggesting that Britain is being taken advantage of.
To call these people “illegal migrants” is not only factually incorrect but irresponsible. It also dehumanises people whose only “crime” is to seek refuge, something enshrined in international law and basic human decency.
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