(Five-minute read) 

The UK was recently given the title of the most crowded country in Europe with a population of nearly 65,000,000 it is the 10th largest source of migrants to the rest of the world.

This is a country that made its wealth on the back of slavery and is now intending to provide those deemed to have arrived unlawfully with a one-way ticket to Rwanda.

SHAME ON YOU  Britain.  

In an effort to curtail human trafficking it is resorting to the same despicable trade of human trafficking it wants to stop.

Priti Patel the daughter of a Ugandan-Indian family should know that refugees are among the most vulnerable people in the world.

Your indifference is the engine of entropy that is shining a light on Britain’s apathy to the plight of refugees.

Anti-immigration sentiment existed in Britain long before the referendum.

On June 23, 2016, Britain held a referendum to determine the future of its relationship with the European Union. “Immigration” was the single strongest issue driving Brits to vote for Leave and fundamentally reshaping the language of “immigration.”

In reality, the UK’s membership in the EU would have very little effect on the country’s responsibilities concerning the refugee crisis, as the UK had already opted out of common EU asylum policies and instead was bound only by a distinct set of international conventions.

The relentless (negative) coverage of the refugee crisis in the media brought the topic of immigration to unprecedented national salience for the British public.

By blurring the boundaries between EU and non-EU, economic and humanitarian, and legal and illegal migration it has not isolated itself from the Leave campaign.  It not only stripped humanity from the crisis but also misled voters by implying that the forces guiding and controlling both the refugee crisis and internal EU migration were the same and could both be solved by leaving the EU.

Without using the terminology of “refugee,” the umbrella term “migrant” instead of “refugee” to refer to people fleeing war zones, has resulted in sending a strong message that Britain is not a country to migrate to. 

The UK’s referendum to leave the EU was an unequivocal demonstration of the anti-establishment sentiments, xenophobia, populism, and Euroscepticism.  

( There has always been an intersection between populist politics and media discourse, and there is strong evidence that fear-based messages appear during important political and electoral markers, like elections.)

We must hope that the Priti Patel deal with Rwanda falls on the sword of justice and that decency people in the UK make their voices heard.

Now more than ever UNHCR’s role in Britain must come to the fore. Promoting accession to, and implementation of, refugee conventions and laws. 

Ensuring that refugees are treated in accordance with internationally recognized legal standards;

Ensuring that refugees are granted asylum and are not forcibly returned to the countries from which they have fled;

Promoting appropriate procedures to determine whether or not a person is a refugee according to the 1951 Convention definition and/or to other definitions found in regional conventions;  

Seeking durable solutions for refugees.

The definition of a refugee is someone who:

“Owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”