Wales doesn’t need to scrap the Nation of Sanctuary – we need to strengthen it

Yuliia Bond

When I first arrived in Wales, fleeing the war in Ukraine, I expected only safety. What I found was something much rarer: belonging. Neighbours became friends, friends became family. That quiet kindness, the willingness to help without fanfare, is what the world recognises as the Welsh spirit.

It is also the spirit behind the Nation of Sanctuary – a promise that compassion can be a national strength. Yet today that vision stands at a crossroads.

Ahead of the 2026 Senedd election, the noise of division is rising. Disinformation has turned kindness into controversy and twisted concern into fear. Some voices argue that the Nation of Sanctuary has run its course.

I believe the opposite. We don’t need to scrap it; we need to upgrade it.

The Real Challenge: An Ageing Nation

Wales has one of the oldest workforces in the UK, with around a third of all workers now aged 50 or over. Demographic projections show that the proportion of older people will continue to rise, increasing the number of retirements and putting pressure on the labour market to replace experienced staff.

Many employers in health care, social care, and small businesses already report growing difficulties in recruitment and retention, reflecting the impact of an ageing population on Wales’s workforce.

The real question is not whether we can “afford” newcomers – it’s whether we can afford to ignore them.

According to Jane Hutt, the Minister for Social Justice, 91% of the Nation of Sanctuary Scheme’s funding was actually used to support Ukrainian refugees with integration.

Interestingly, during the election in Caerphilly some political parties claimed the money was being spent solely on “asylum seekers” arriving across the English Channel – a narrative that, it seems, didn’t quite match reality.

One party even launched a petition against the scheme, apparently unaware of where the funding really went.

From Charity to Strategy

The far-right frames sanctuary as charity or weakness: “we help them at our expense.” That framing works because it feeds on fear – fear of losing control, identity, or opportunity.

Philosophers from Hobbes to Rousseau understood that when people feel insecure, they trade freedom for protection. Authoritarians offer simple certainty; democrats must offer trustworthy security.

The answer, then, is not louder outrage but calmer confidence: showing that inclusion is protection. A strong state doesn’t close doors – it plans wisely for who walks through them.

The Nation of Sanctuary was never about open borders – immigration controlled by the UK Government; it was about open opportunities. When refugees work, pay taxes, and fill vital jobs, everyone benefits.

Integration reduces welfare costs and pressure on public services. It’s not compassion versus pragmatism – it’s compassion as pragmatism.

Unlocking Wales’s Hidden Workforce

Walk through any Welsh community centre and you’ll meet people who were engineers, doctors, teachers, and carers before war or persecution forced them to flee. They arrive with experience, but the system treats them as beginners.

Degrees go unrecognised, licences lapse, and English-language courses are rarely tied to real employment.

That’s not failure of goodwill; it’s failure of design. We guard our data with precision – it’s time to guard our human capital with the same care.

Here’s what a Smarter Nation of Sanctuary could look like:

Recognise international qualifications.

Create a Welsh framework, starting with health, care, and green industries, so professionals
can retrain quickly instead of restarting from zero.

Expand English-language and job-linked training.

Language should be a bridge to work, not a waiting room.

Certify “Refugee-Friendly Employers.”

Offer recognition to companies that provide apprenticeships, internships, and fair hiring for
displaced people.

Match skills to local needs.

Councils, colleges, and businesses can cooperate to connect existing talent to labour shortages in their regions.

Tell the success stories.

Launch national campaigns that show how newcomers strengthen the economy and
communities – countering lies with lived evidence.

These reforms cost less than the economic loss of unused talent. Every refugee doctor retrained for the NHS, every teacher back in the classroom, every entrepreneur opening a shop keeps Wales working.

Truth as Public Infrastructure

We live in an age where data is protected by law but truth is left defenceless. During local elections in Caerphilly, a single false post about the Nation of Sanctuary spread faster than any verified fact. It shifted anger away from broken systems and onto ordinary families who had fled bombs. Within weeks, hate incidents rose and trust fell.

Far-right narratives thrive not because people are cruel, but because they are tired. Tired of confusion, tired of no change. That’s why leadership today must combine humility with honesty: speak simply, factually, without disdain.

Wales needs to build a national strategy to fight disinformation – bringing journalists, educators, and policymakers together to treat truth as a shared public good.

Schools should teach media literacy alongside maths. Public figures should be trained to recognise and rebut misinformation before it metastasises.

Silence is not neutrality; it’s surrender.

A New Social Contract for Wales

The great social-contract thinkers asked why people surrender their natural freedom. Hobbes said it was fear. Locke said reason. Rousseau said belonging.

Wales can combine all three lessons: offer safety, fairness, and community – so people choose unity over division.

The next Senedd can embody that contract by modernising the Nation of Sanctuary. Not as a side policy, but as a pillar of Welsh renewal. Because justice, when applied to migration, isn’t abstract; it’s administrative. It lives in qualification frameworks, employer incentives, and local councils that make integration real.

The Cost of Hate – and the Price of Hope

Hate is costly. At the forestart, it’s anti-racism campaigns, awareness trainings, and now the fight against disinformation – all of which the Welsh Government may have to fund.

Every false headline has a price tag. Hate crimes in the UK on a religious basis rose 25 per cent last year, demanding more policing, longer waiting lists, and greater mental-health support.

Hate doesn’t just wound hearts; it drains budgets. Meanwhile, racist incidents reported by UK nurses have surged by 55 per cent over the past three years. Each act of hate ripples outward, costing not only compassion but also capacity – in our hospitals, our services, and our public purse.

By contrast, inclusion pays dividends. Each person who feels welcome invests loyalty, taxes, and creativity back into the country that protected them.

That’s the moral logic Plato foresaw: justice creates harmony when every part of society “does what it does best.” Wales cannot function if capable people are forced to stand aside because the far right or bureaucracy won’t see their worth.

Leadership Beyond Fear

The far-right trades in anger because anger is simple. Real leadership offers meaning because meaning lasts.

To lead Wales now is to combine intellect with empathy – to be strong enough to stay kind, wise enough to stay calm, and humble enough to listen. People do not follow arrogance; they follow clarity.

When we tell the truth plainly – that migration is not invasion but renewal – we take away fear’s oxygen.
When we give citizens real evidence instead of slogans, we build immunity against manipulation.

When we match newcomers’ skills with Wales’s needs, we show that sanctuary is not a burden but a blueprint.

The Wales Worth Building

The Wales I know doesn’t measure people by where they came from, but by what they contribute. It’s Wales that volunteers on weekends, that sings together in storms, that believes fairness is strength.

If we protect that spirit – and modernise the policies that express it – we can turn welcome into opportunity and opportunity into shared prosperity.

A Nation of Sanctuary isn’t a sentimental idea; it’s Wales’s smartest long-term investment.

Because hate costs lives, resources, and hope. But truth builds nations. And the truth is simple: Wales works best when it works for everyone.