Mike over at Vox Political also has a story reporting that the Tories have won a knife edge vote against a motion that would have obliged Britain to take in about 3,000 child refugees a year. The motion was tabled by the Labour Peer, Lord Dubs, who was one of those fortunate enough to be given sanctuary in Britain away from the Nazis through the Kindertransport in 1939. Keir Starmer, Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister, has stated that this won’t stop their efforts to get the bill passed, and that the fight will go on.
Mike has covered the problem of child refugees before. They were an issue twenty years ago, when Yasmin Alibhai-Browne in her column in the Independent urged Britain to take them in. The issue has become more acute since it was revealed that over a hundred of them have just disappeared after the Calais migrant camp, the ‘Jungle’, was levelled. Mike’s article on that incident highlighted the fact that the children were at risk, not just of poverty, but also of exploitation. He asked rhetorically if this was acceptable.
Simple humanity says it is not.
But apparently, the Tories think so. Or at least, if there’s a choice between saving the government and saving children, they’d rather bail out Cameron.
Tags: 'The Independent', Asylum Seekers, Calais, Children, Conservatives, David Cameron, Immigration, Keir Starmer, Kindertransport, Lord Dubs, Vox Political, Yasmin Alibhai-Browne
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