Refugees...the Conservative case for welcome

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This evening we're sitting in the pub retelling the old tales, things we've been told by folk in times past. And during this talk one of those post-WW2 stories was told. A story of a Pole or Ukrainian walking across Europe ahead of the Russian armies desperate to find a place of freedom. The detail doesn't matter just the remembering of the effort and sacrifice - leaving friends and family behind, hiding from Soviet troops, living off the land hoping for the occasional, unexpected act of kindness.

Scroll forward nearly 70 years and ask yourself how these young men (they were mostly young men) differ from the young men we see clutching the gunnels of a rickety boat or crowded into some railway station or other? I forget how many people were displaced by WW2 - 30, 50, perhaps 60 million? Poles, Ukrainians, Greeks, Germans, Italians and Jews. People who saw their homeland destroyed by war and then, seemingly arbitrarily, moved from Poland to the Soviet Union or from Germany to Poland.

Today we look - a blink of an eye later in terms of human history - and these people (or rather their descendants) are settled, content in the new places they found. Hence the stories. And the thousands of sturdy English men and women who, when asked, will tell you of their Polish mum, Ukrainian grandad or Latvian father. And everywhere across Europe the story is the same - the descendants of those refugees are part of the place they finally landed.

Here in Bradford we still remember the struggle of the captive nations, mark the Soviet genocide of holodomor, and recall the destruction of Srebenicia. We do this because it's right and, just as importantly, because the consequence of these struggles is part of the history and tradition of the City. Just as we mark Pakistan's creation and the independence of Jamaica.

So when we ask whether we should welcome a few Syrian refugees, we should recall these tales and say 'yes, we can help'. Not just because it's the right thing to do but because so much of our city's meaning comes from people who crossed the world to be in Bradford. Those few Syrians will, I'm sure, mark another group who found welcome here and who bring a new set of stories. My hope is that a future group of Bradfordians - in 50 years time - will be sat in the pub telling tales. And one of those tales will be about a Syrian who climbed fences, crossed boundaries and walked miles just to find peace and freedom.

To turn people away because "we're full" or worse "it's not our problem" is to deny our shared humanity. And - as a Conservative, more sadly - to deny the opportunity to share the history and tradition of our land. A place without that tale of effort and sacrifice in search of freedom, choice and a better life.

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A reminder why we have an international aid budget

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I get the anger at there being cuts at home while the budget for international aid has been protected. And, for the record, I don't support the mandated 0.7%, the de facto hypothecation of the budget or the preference for bilateral deals. But having an international aid budget isn't simply a case of us rich folk being nice to poor people in Africa. Investing in those places - helping them develop - is absolutely in our interests.

As we've been reminded:

Whether it was the Mediterranean's deadliest refugee drowning in decades remains to be seen. But it was certainly terrible, and its political effects could spread far. One of the survivors of a refugee boat that capsized late on the night of April 18th in the waters between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa said that at least 700 people had been on board. Just 28 have been rescued so far. That would make it by far the worst maritime disaster in the Mediterranean since the second world war.

A great deal has been made of the decision by the EU (and individual states including Britain) to end "planned search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean" because it was believed that fishing refugees from out of the sea only encouraged more of them to attempt the risky crossing. I do not support this policy - it is quite simply inhumane. I remember the suggestion - I think from P J O'Rourke - that instead of turning these folk away, we should be on the beach with a towel and a passport. We keep saying how we want risk-takers and people with get up and go - isn't that the very definition of these refugees?

The solution, if that's the right word, is for there to be less reason to leave Africa in the first place. And while war and the depredations of lousy government are part of the story, economic opportunity is central - just like us, these Africans are seeking to better their lives and are taking enormous risks in doing so.

And this is why we have an aid budget. It's also why that aid is better directed through multilateral agencies like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund than through cosy bilateral deals or, worst of all, through the agency of well-meaning but wrong-headed NGOs. Right now our aid programmes are a mixture of anti-globalist nonsense, the subsidising of rural poverty and a few strong infrastructure programmes (mostly around health and education). It's not the size of the budget but its direction that is the problem - we need investment that comes with strings, with a bit of that Washington Consensus that the left are so touchy about but which has been the single biggest reason for reductions in world poverty.

So long as the gap between opportunities here and opportunities there exists people will try to arbitrage the gap - some will be ordinary economic migrants, students and the like. But there's big money to be made smuggling people across borders and, as the Americans have found, it's almost impossible to stop people crossing those borders. So investing in those countries so they have the infrastructure needed for development makes every kind of sense if we want to prevent out richer places being a huge magnet for the billion or so folk out there who'd like a better life.

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Fabrice Muamba: a reminder of why we grant asylum...

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Quite rightly the airwaves, blogs, newspapers and twittersphere is filled with the terrible news of Fabrice Muamba's on-pitch heart attack. Like everyone else I hope he pulls through, just as Mervyn Davies - who died yesterday - did after his on-pitch brain haemorrhage in 1976 playing for Swansea against Pontypridd.

Reading Muamba's story brought out another aspect of his life, something other than that he was a successful premier league football player living in Cheshire and playing for Bolton Wanderers. Muamba was only here and playing football because Britain gave his parents political asylum.

...the only reason Muamba was in England is because his father, Marcel, was a political refugee, granted indefinite leave on the basis that his life would be in danger if he were made to return to Africa. Muamba talked of going to sleep at night amid the backdrop of gunfire. His uncle, Ilunga, was murdered. Friends and neighbours died, too. When it was safe, he and his friends would play football but, very often, they would be called back inside.

We give asylum because it is the right thing to do - forget about the fiddles and abuse, the false claims, the political football. We give asylum so youngsters like Fabrice Muamba can play football without being kidnapped or shot because their Dad's on the wrong side in politics or a civil war.  There are thousands of other stories - less high profile - that tell us the same thing, that we give sanctuary to those fleeing threats without fear or favour and give them the same chance we give our own people, our own children.

It's one of the things that make us a great nation and a great people.

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So much for Gross National Happiness...

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The Himalayan ex-kingdom of Bhutan made loads of headlines with it's invention of Gross National Happiness as a measure of the country's performance. Hippies, Greenies and assorted trendy lefties all squealed with delight at this innovation.

But if Bhutan's such a happy place why are we housing refugees from this 'happy country'?

The UK Border Agency is today welcoming 37 Bhutanese refugees into the UK. The move follows the agreement under the Gateway Protection Programme for the UK to take 750 refugees from a number of different locations in 2010-11. This includes an eventual total of 100 Bhutanese refugees who have been living in Nepalese refugee camps since 1992 or 1993, with no prospect of local integration in Nepal or repatriation to Bhutan. It is the first time that the UK has resettled Bhutanese refugees.

Not such a great idea after all it seems!

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