According to a report today, the UK's treatment of asylum seekers falls seriously below the standards of a civilised society. The findings state that we treat genuine asylum seekers badly, and let too many non deserving cases stay. Apparently it's a 'shameful blemish on the UK's reputation'
As far as I can see nowhere in report is there a comparison to other countries with 'civilised societies'. While there are undoubtedly many genuine asylum seekers who are grave danger if they stay in their own country, the UK doesn't have to be the first option to them. Indeed, many travel through several other 'civilised' countries to reach the UK.
Let the French, Germans, Spanish etc etc take their fair share of these unfortunate people. It is not only the tens of thousands of immigrants to the UK who think that we're a soft touch, we're also having the piss taken out of us by other EU countries who dutifully protect their taxpayers with tighter regulations.
Ashamed of our reputation? Indeed, but not for the reasons outlined in the report.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
It might be helpful to reference the report itself, Charles. The BBC include a link in their article on it.
It ought to be fairly easy to define what a civilised society is. To most people, this would mean one which upholds things like the European Convention on Human Rights.
Other European countries do, in fact, take their "fair share" of asylum applications. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland all process more asylum applications per 1000 of their population than we do. Spain, France and Germany take fewer, it's true. Do you recommend the UK does nothing about any issue until the French, Germans and Spanish are better at it than us?
Only someone with no experience of the UK asylum process could say it's a soft touch. It's much tougher and more hopelessly bureaucratic than things like housing benefits that most of us know are dreadfull to have to try and claim.
When the report talks about shame, it's specifically referring to the use of destitution as a tool for enforcing policy, and it says that if this continues or grows, then it "runs the risk of placing a shameful blemish on our nation's ... record ...". I'd be interested to hear why you think there is a hidden agenda here? What are the reasons that you think are not mentioned in the report?
Post a Comment