Plaid MP warns Home Secretary small boats bill will make asylum seekers suicidal
A Plaid Cymru MP has warned the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman that the UK Government’s controversial small boats bill could make asylum seekers feel suicidal.
A refugee living in Wales told MP for Arfon, Hywel Williams that the new Illegal Migration Bill – which will prevent those arriving illegally from claiming asylum – could lead to asylum seekers taking their own lives.
Safaa, whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity, told Hywel Williams via the Welsh Refugee Council that she had “left everything behind” to escape Daesh in Syria to find a “better life for her family” in Wales.
Safaa said that had the UK Government’s policy of turning refugees away en masse to Rwanda been in place when she came to the UK 12 years ago, she “would have killed herself”.
Hywel Williams MP put the words to the Home Secretary and asked what she had to say to Safaa.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Hywel Williams MP said: “Safaa, who is a Syrian refugee escaped from Daesh for her own safety to save her life. She thinks that the Government’s plans will make others in her situation feel suicidal.
“She said that, ‘with the UK Government policy, when you arrive, the dream is broken, it is gone. Still, my family have settled in Wales and contribute to society.’
“I want to say to Safaa that she is welcome and that we want her to stay as long as necessary. What does the Home Secretary have to say to Safaa?”
The Home Secretary responded that she is “very proud of our track record of welcoming people through humanitarian routes.”
Perilous journey
Speaking after the session, Hywel Williams MP added: “The Government’s proposals show a complete lack of humanity for people who have made such a perilous journey in search of sanctuary.
“The proposals further undermine Wales’ ambition to become a Nation of Sanctuary and do nothing to fundamentally address the issue which is a lack of safe routes as alternatives to channel crossings.
“Plaid Cymru will oppose these immoral and unworkable plans.”
Suella Braverman said new legislation would be introduced to remove asylum seekers and ban them from re-entry if they arrive in the UK through unauthorised means.
She told MPs: “For a Government not to respond to waves of illegal migrants breaching our borders would be to betray the will of the people we were elected to serve.
“They will not stop coming here until the world knows that if you enter Britain illegally you will be detained and swiftly removed.
“Removed back to your country if it is safe, or to a safe third country like Rwanda. And that is precisely what this Bill will do. That is how we will stop the boats.”
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I doubt one person on the Tory front bench would see that as a downside Hywel…
Homo Superior feels no compassion for ‘others’. The new Europa is committed to the Med being Europe’s moat where all who seek succour and to escape the burning parched Africa shall drown and perish in this tideless sea…
This is the one thing Sunak and Braverman et. al. really could and probably do agree with Brussels about.
You’re right, they think that targeting small boats and stopping – so they believe – being ‘swamped’ by immigrants is a vote winner, and that is all that matters to them. They have no morals or compassion.
The tories are creating immigration policies that they surely know full well are unworkable. Why would they do this? So they can blame the failure of these policies on the European Convention on Human Rights, as a pretext for leaving it. We need to start taking that possibility and it’s ramifications seriously. ECHR compliance is written into devolution policy, which means that devolution is an obstacle to the tories leaving the ECHR. This needs to be put front and centre of the constitutional conversation, because we may well not get to choose between independence and greater devolved powers. The choice… Read more »
It’s ironic seeing chinless wonder Home Secretary Suella Braverman & PM Rishy Sunak whose economic migrant parents entered Britain penniless would themselves have been ejected with this legislation. More red meat to the Brexit voting little England Tory rabid right. 🙄
Did the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister come to the UK with
with no documentation? If all those crossing the channel had papers before leaving France why the need to throw them away? Does Plaid have a workable and humane plan to accept 40,000 plus undocumented immigrants each year and all the facilities required for housing, health, education etc?
Exactly!
Cymru is a Nation of Sanctuary.
Sadly, compassion for those in need is not a devolved matter.
Independence, once again, the answer.
How many migrants do you think it would be possible for an independent Wales to accommodate?
Well, there’s 22,000 long term unoccupied homes in Wales to start with
There are housing waiting lists far larger than that 22,000. Not all of those waiting are from outside of Wales’ border.
Through Gladstone, Lloyd George, Emlyn Hooson and today, Wales has always been a country that allows people to come here if they have the best in mind, need to do so and want to succeed on their own merit.
Why don’t Welsh Lib Dems campaign for Welsh independence?
Why are Lib Dems have a different policy for Wales and but agreeing to Northern Ireland leaving the UK to join Ireland?
Surely, failure to support Welsh and Scottish independence is at odds to what is written on the back of all LibDem membership cards. – Opposing conformity !!!!
We are fed up with UK centralism. We want to be an independent liberal country.
Not to be ruled by another country as stated in the ALDE constitution.
For any Home Secretary to put into writing in a bill placed before the House that it fails to comply with International law and the Convention on Human Rights is, as Amnesty International says, “a shocking new low” even for this bunch of lowlifes.
They won’t be ‘suicidal’. They will simply remain in France.