Thread by @FisherAndrew79

Over the last two days, MPs debated the Nationality & Borders Bill which creates an even more hostile environment for refugees who reach our shores.

Labour voted against this racist legislation. And I want to highlight three outstanding speeches by backbench Labour MPs 1/n

Firstly, @BellRibeiroAddy:

"This horrendous piece of legislation ... does nothing to create safe routes for refugees, nothing to end the hostile environment, nothing to end the danger of unsafe asylum accommodation" 2/n

@BellRibeiroAddy "We are living through an age of mass displacement driven by war, poverty and climate breakdown …At times like this, the Government should not be dodging their moral and legal obligations to accept their fair share of refugees"

3/n
Read her full speech: hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-0…

Bell added:

"As the late, great Tony Benn once said:

“The way a Government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it”."
4/n

Next @stellacreasy

“Turkey is taking 4m refugees and we are quibbling about 26,000 applications. The vast majority of refugees end up staying in the areas they have run from, displaced and living in developing countries when wealthy ones like ours want to look the other way”
5/n

@stellacreasy "Persecution does not happen in an orderly fashion. Wars are not run to a timetable to be able to make people make applications. You run, you grab your children, you flee with what you can, you try to save their lives ... What parent cannot understand that ambition?"
6/n

@stellacreasy “Yarl’s Wood is a stain on our national identity, a place where victims of sexual abuse and rape in war are jailed. Not only does it cost more than community schemes to run, but it retraumatises those women over and over again”
7/n

@stellacreasy "I urge colleagues to vote this Bill down and stand up to those who demonise refugees. Let us come together to come back with something that can make Britain proud of how we treat the persecuted, not an international pariah"

8/n
Read Stella's full speech: hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-0…

And finally @johnmcdonnellMP

"This is a shameful, squalid, small-minded and racist Bill, and it does what this Government do best—in fact, the only thing this Government do well—which is whipping up division and demonising people to distract from their own failures"
9/n

"I have two detention centres in my constituency. I have been visiting them and dealing with asylum cases for more than 45 years...I can remember when there was a single Nissen hut with no more than 20 people in, but now up to 1,000 people detained in prison-like conditions"
10/n

Read @johnmcdonnellMP’s speech in full here: hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-0…
11/n

There's video of @johnmcdonnellMP's speech in the debate via @LondonEconomic ...
12/n

https://twitter.com/LondonEconomic/status/1417872405721239558?s=20