What’s happened?
This week, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said that he wants wealthier areas to house more asylum seekers.
“We cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers,” he said on Tuesday.
The latest stories about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants have been driven by the small village of Piddington holding a local ‘referendum’ and making the symbolic choice to leave the United Kingdom. The Home Office is considering using the nearby Bicester barracks to house 1,250 refugees and asylum seekers, but this has been met with spirited opposition from the 350 local residents.
We understand that the villagers have been given no information about how the Home Office intends to manage the 1,250 asylum seekers in an open environment. Home Office minister Anna Turley said they would be “contained” on the “self-contained” site in Piddington but clarified those being housed would be allowed out.
What are we being told to think?
On one side we have the usual ‘wealthy versus the rest of us’ argument. Why shouldn’t everyone be treated equally and why shouldn’t the wealthy, in the words of Andy Burnham, “play their part”?
On the other side we have a village that would be outnumbered nearly 4 to 1 by an influx of people who have just set foot on our shores, and haven’t yet been through the asylum process.
Hang on a minute…
Is this really another scenario about money and who has it? Is it really about how many asylum seekers there are or where they’re placed? Or shouldn’t we be asking not about where but about how and when they’re processed?
The reasonable position
There’s a lot of merit in trying to be fair. In a functioning society, everyone should do their bit. But is it fair that when people enter the UK by ‘irregular routes’ they are almost immediately dispersed into communities before their asylum claims have been resolved?
A reasonable person might well want to help genuine asylum seekers and refugees. In an ideal world, if we all had our wants and needs met then there might well be less stress and friction. However, a reasonable person might also expect their government to protect them from uncertainties.
These aren’t mutually exclusive positions. We can want to protect people fleeing persecution while also expecting the government to control our borders, identify risks, and process claims efficiently. Wanting the latter does not make you heartless.
It is not the location or even the number of people in the ongoing influx of asylum seekers that is the real problem but the fact they aren’t securely accommodated while they are processed and either granted permission to remain in the UK, or have their claim rejected. They are simply bussed to houses, hotels and public buildings throughout the country, and then left to wait for months or years while living in or alongside established communities across the country.
The uncomfortable bit
This isn’t an easy problem to solve but before turning this into yet another ‘make the wealthy bear more of the burden’ argument, if the government simply detained those who entered the country via ‘irregular routes’, they would have the opportunity to establish who the people are, assess any security risks they might pose, and process their claims while remaining in secure facilities before dispersing them into communities.
During COVID we were able to do extraordinary things and build hospitals in a matter of days. The government has enormous logistical capabilities when it chooses to use them. If it can rapidly create accommodation, process large numbers of people and provide security in response to an emergency, why has the asylum system become a years-long operation, scattering people across the country?
If the gates to Bicester barracks were locked and a process in place to rapidly and fairly process the people the Home Office wants to put there, then maybe the villagers of Piddington would feel better about doing their bit and re-join the UK.
One last thing…
Putting aside the asylum seeker argument for a moment, does living in a small village in Oxfordshire automatically make you wealthy? The government seems to think so…