Among members of the Government and their advisers, it is difficult to find anybody willing to defend its record when it comes to helping Ukrainian refugees. In interviews, ministers pass the buck. No 10 blames the Home Office, and the Home Office blames No 10. Michael Gove will today launch a new policy, in which we can sponsor refugees and welcome them into our homes.
It is hard to explain why they were caught short. As the drumbeat of Putin’s war grew louder, it was predictable that there would be a new refugee crisis in Europe. As the Ministry of Defence hurriedly supplied the Ukrainians with weaponry, anticipating the invasion, it seems nobody elsewhere in Government anticipated that Britain would need a plan for large numbers of refugees.
The explanations doing the rounds will not do. Some claim the Government is motivated only by bigotry and a determination to reduce all forms of immigration. But this overlooks the fact that ministers have paved the way for hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers, and tens of thousands of Afghans, to build new lives in Britain, and the fact that the Government’s new immigration framework will see the numbers remain at record highs.
More likely is a more mundane explanation. Without a coherent view of immigration – the Home Secretary wants to cut it, while the Prime Minister’s instincts are liberal; some think the notional ability to control immigration after Brexit is all that matters, while others believe the Brexit vote was an instruction to get the numbers down – the Government has no guiding principles to inform its policies. Neither does it have a clear approach to asylum policy: before the invasion the priority had been to find a way of stopping the Channel crossings, and while Priti Patel wanted a tough, Australian-style approach, others in Government were less keen.
Without political direction, blind and bumbling bureaucracy filled the space. On the day the Russians invaded, the Home Office announced Ukrainians already in Britain could extend their visas. Ministers changed the rules to allow Ukrainians with family in Britain to get a visa. But no specific resettlement schemes were created. Confusion about where Ukrainians had to go to to apply for a visa, about the documents needed, and the routes they should use was used as a stick to beat the Government. More importantly it stopped vulnerable people reuniting with their families and getting the help they needed.
This is not to argue for a free-for-all. The Home Office is right to want to conduct security checks on everybody we bring here. There is a reason Ukrainians were not entitled to visa-free travel to Britain before the war. The country was well-known for corruption and organised crime, including human trafficking. But it is possible to carry out these checks while still pursuing a more generous policy.
Ideally, the Government should have followed a variation of its policy during the Syrian civil war. Then, as now with Ukrainians, Britain extended the visas of Syrians already here. As the largest donor to the region after America, Britain also provided huge support for Jordan and Lebanon, the countries receiving the largest numbers of refugees. And ministers created specific schemes to bring more than 25,000 Syrians to Britain directly from the region.
It was during the Syria crisis that the Government introduced the idea of a community sponsorship programme, which allows community groups to support refugees as they settle in Britain. The programme allows volunteers to arrange English lessons and schooling, and help with access to healthcare, employment and training. Gove’s new policy builds on this work.
Beyond the Ukraine crisis, we need a coherent and consistent strategy for refugees and asylum seekers, based on these two policies – the Syria approach and the community sponsorship programme – and one more. There is an upper limit to any kind of immigration: there are limited resources and that means, if we want to be as generous as we can to refugees from Ukraine and other crisis-stricken places, we cannot tolerate the abuse of migration routes that exist for those who genuinely need refuge.
Patel is right therefore to support offshore processing for asylum seekers who enter Britain illegally. The beneficiaries of abuse are rarely the most vulnerable people fleeing places like Ukraine, but almost always fitter, healthier, richer young men seeking a better economic future. However understandable their aspirations, their success comes at the expense of those we have an obligation to help.
And in the case of Ukraine, we must do more. Some critics complain that in demanding greater help for Ukrainians, we are guilty of a double standard, because we did not make such demands for Syrians. But this is nonsense. First, Syrians were given a specific resettlement programme – the largest such programme ever launched in Britain – and no comparable scheme has yet been established for Ukrainians. And second, it is not unreasonable, for reasons of identity and geography, to believe that Britain has a duty to accept larger numbers of refugees fleeing a European war. Just as Middle Eastern countries took the greatest share of the burden during the Syria crisis so European countries will want to help a nation with which they share history and culture. And geography matters too: if European countries, like Britain, do not help European refugees, who will?
Refugee programmes can never amount to a whole solution. Britain and our allies need to go on helping the Ukrainians in their resistance, and help them to rebuild their country when the Russians finally leave. We also need to help neighbouring countries like Poland and Hungary. But in the meantime we must stand ready to help tens of thousands of Ukrainians, maybe more, by inviting them here to Britain.
If the Government can build its strategy around these three policies – dedicated resettlement programmes, community sponsorship and offshore processing for those who arrive here illegally – we will be able to help far more vulnerable people.
