Nick Ferrari Says: Hapless Home Office needs to finally treat refugees right
11 March 2022, 17:20
The government can rightly claim credit for the way it has handled much of the Ukrainian crisis.
But there is one massive exception where it has been caught floundering and has been massively out of touch.
Frankly the way in which terrified Ukrainian families are being treated if they seek refuge in the UK shames the nation.
The bungling incompetence and downright heartlessness from the hapless Home Office has made headlines around the world.
This from the nation that has been a beacon at times of refugee crises such as the mass exodus of Jewish people in the run up to and during the Second World War and more recently the expulsion of Ugandan Asians and people fleeing the fall of Afghanistan.
Read more: Russian state TV defies Putin and finally starts broadcasting criticism of the war
The latest Home Office policy to enable Ukrainians to travel to meet up with families already in Britain won't be ready until this Tuesday.
From Windrush, to the immigration crisis to the plight of these Ukrainians, the Home Office has once again cemented its unenviable reputation in Whitehall. And given the grotesque inadequacies witnessed so frequently, that really is saying something.
What that means is that a system by which, having left friends and possessions behind and run for your life and the lives of those you cherish, to stand a chance of getting into this country you have to create your own online account, provide proof that you had lived in Ukraine before January 1 this year and translate this all into English.
And on their woeful website, there is 'helpful advice' pointing you to "visa centres" in Paris or Brussels but without providing any actual address.
Note to Ms. Patel and crew: these cities are quite big places and even a district would be a helpful start! Another centre has just been opened in Lille, precisely 70 miles from where the Home Secretary claimed it already opened in Calais.
Little surprise then that manic left wing commentators seize on this and try to lay the blame at the door of Brexit. This, they say, displays the “hostile attitude to foreigners” that is supposedly so rife these days.
But In truth it is nothing of the sort.
As a country we can be proud about the amount of money raised which dwarfs every other nation on the planet and hail the people who are bulk buying nappies, milk formula, clothes and just about everything else imaginable to take to centres so it can be shipped to Ukraine.
This is nothing to do with Little England; it is about the big failure of our politicians.
It wasn't that long ago when Immigration Minister Kevin Foster suggested desperate Ukrainians could be treated the same as seasonal fruit pickers.
And last week he even cited the 2018 Novichok attack in Salisbury by Russian intelligence officers as a need for rigorous security.
He clearly thinks a young Ukrainian mother with a babe in arms and a toddler clinging to her is a Russian sleeper. God help our levels of so called “ intelligence and espionage."
As this bloody conflict is played out, which do you find more disgusting? The continual shelling of innocent civilians by a maniacal despot?
Or a nation that once prided itself on tolerance, effectively bolting the door in the face of desperate folk and putting up the closed sign?
The new system simply must work but otherwise Britain will be remembered for turning its back on those who needed help the most.
