Prominent Ukrainian refugee criticises Reform ahead of Nation of Sanctuary debate

Emily Price 

A prominent Ukrainian refugee has sharply criticised Reform UK ahead of a Senedd motion which calls on the Welsh Government to scrap its controversial Nation of Sanctuary policy.

Caerphilly based community leader Yuliia Bond defended the scheme in a post to Facebook responding to comments by Reform’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Finance and Government Efficiency, Cai Parry-Jones.

Announcing the Reform debate set to take place in the Senedd on Wednesday (July 1), Mr Parry-Jones described the Nation of Sanctuary policy as a “left-wing experiment that hands taxpayer-funded support to ‘asylum seekers'”.

The Member of the Senedd for Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf said that “real asylum seekers” are seeking asylum “not extra goodies”.

“Those who play the system to claim the label aren’t genuine refugees, they’re illegal economic migrants, here to take as much as they can from this country,” Mr Parry-Jones added.

Ms Bond argued that Mr Parry-Jones was spreading false information about the scheme.

She moved to Caerphilly in 2022 after fleeing Russia’s invasion of her home country.

Ms Bond has since spent the past four years helping to integrate fellow Ukrainian refugees into the local community.

She is currently collecting examples for a forum on disinformation in Wales to help track and document how misinformation spreads.

Immigration

The Welsh Government does not control borders or immigration as these are reserved powers handled solely by the UK Government and the Home Office.

The Nation of Sanctuary policy focuses on supporting asylum seekers and refugees by helping them access public services, housing, language lessons, and health care once they are place in Wales by the Home Office.

91% of the £55m spent on the Nation of Sanctuary scheme over six years has gone towards resettling refugees from Ukraine.

The amount represents less than 0.05% of the Welsh Government’s budget over the period.

However, Reform UK and the Welsh Conservatives say the scheme provides a “pull factor” to encourage asylum seekers to enter the UK illegally.

Ukrainians are not classed as asylum seekers because the UK Government created temporary protection pathways specifically for them after Vladimir Putin launched his full scale invasion.

While standard asylum seekers are unable to work and must live on minimal state support while their cases spend months or years in limbo, Ukrainians are deliberately granted immediate access to the UK’s workforce.

In a post to Facebook tagging Mr Parry-Jones, Ms Bond wrote: “Cai Parry-Jones MS, you wrote that the Nation of Sanctuary ‘hands taxpayer-funded support to ‘asylum seekers.’

“Yet around 91% of that funding supported Ukrainians, who are not asylum seekers.
This isn’t a minor mistake. It’s the central fact of the policy you’re asking the Senedd to scrap.

“If you’re asking the public to support your motion, the least the public should expect is that you accurately describe what you’re trying to abolish.

“I live in Wales. I work here. I pay taxes here. I contribute here. So yes, I have every right to challenge claims that don’t match the evidence.

“We’ll undoubtedly hear that ‘people are concerned’. Of course they are. Public concern matters.

“But public concern is only as well-founded as the information people are given.

“If people are told the wrong thing about what a policy does, who it supports and how public money is spent, they are not judging the policy itself. They are judging a false version of it.
“Politicians are free to argue that the Nation of Sanctuary should be abolished. They are not free to misrepresent it while making that case.

“A democracy depends on disagreement. But disagreement only has value when it’s based on facts.

“The public deserves an honest debate about the real Nation of Sanctuary, not a version of it that never existed.

“And this is what actually wastes taxpayers’ money. Not a policy that accounts for around 0.05% of the Welsh Government’s budget.

“But using taxpayer-funded parliamentary time to debate a false version of it.
The Welsh public deserves better than that.”