For the blow-by-blow of today's Lords' debates and votes on the Bill tonight, Jon's excellent thread is where you need to be. I'm tapping out after that high on Clause 11. Knackered. Take her away, Jon.
If you want to do something good tonight, tweet that video of Lord Kerr up there to your MP.
Tell them that when the Bill comes back to them, you want them to follow the good example from the Lords & throw out a Bill that would deny protection to Ukrainians fleeing Putin's war.
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An interesting thread.
Ukrainians are “Europeans like us” now, but when just a few months ago they were seasonal agricultural workers, they were “replacements” for EU free movement labour, they were expendable after 6 months, campaigns for their workers’ rights ignored entirely.
We saw the racialisation of Eastern Europeans during the Brexit campaign and the years before, and we could see it again. If numbers of Ukrainian refugees grow and the conflict continues, leaving them displaced for long periods, how will they be seen across Europe longer term?
How much of Western Europe’s generosity is based on the tacit understanding that the vast majority of displaced Ukrainians will in fact remain among their “brothers” in Poland? How long will the suspension of usual arguments about “illegitimate secondary movement” apply?
While we hear of a huge Russian advance on Kyiv, here’s Lord Kerr explaining clearly how the government’s #NationalityAndBordersBill will mean no Ukrainian could receive full refugee protection in the UK.
The Lords did the right thing last night, will MPs change course? #r4today
And while we are all eyes on Ukraine, we cannot forget the other refugees that this #AntiRefugeeBill is going to harm. #r4today report of Afghan fathers selling their organs in order to feed their families has knocked the wind out of me. The least we can do is THROW OUT THIS BILL
Yvette Cooper rightly says it’s so wrong Ukrainians living in the UK cannot bring elderly parents to join them here.
The rules on family reunion, for refugees and all migrants, are unnecessarily limited & cruel - and the #NationalityAndBordersBill will make it much worse #r4today
Under this law, Ukrainians reaching the UK for protection would be considered criminals, denied the right to seek asylum, sent to offshore detention. It must be thrown out. #r4today
Tom Tugendhat on #r4today says he thinks UK is likely to “end up” doing the same for Ukrainian refugees as the whole EU has: visa free travel and no need to seek asylum on arrival, automatic grant of work visas.
I will believe THAT when I see it….
Tom Tugendhat, who was in Afghanistan & was praised for his emotional speech about how we must not abandon the Afghans who served with him to the Taliban, who reckons we’re about to give Ukrainians visa free travel, was not asked his feelings on the #AntiRefugeeBill on #r4today
There’s plenty of people happy to shout about their straw man interpretation of what this means. I’d be delighted to have conversations about the serious, long-term & achievable global vision outlined in the piece. Not with loons raging about “millions of Africans” thanks. 😑😌
One interesting thing about Ukraine is, since 2014, 10s of thousands of refugees have already entered Poland.
Just they did so visa-free & were immediately able to work & didn’t have to leave their rights behind at the border. That system has worked. It could exist world wide.
Truly terrifying reports of Russian invasion in Ukraine.
Thinking of these poor Ukrainian families desperately trying to decide what to do. We must keep our hearts open across Europe and share responsibility for safely receiving as many as are forced to flee. #r4today
And that includes here in the UK. We cannot fall back on the shameful old “first safe country” idea and wash our hands of their fate. Ukrainians must be welcome here. And the best way to achieve that is to immediately establish safe travel options for refugees.
Shameful that people from Ukraine who come to us seeking safety will face the cruelty of our asylum system, held up by delays, denied the right to work, in poor quality accommodation.
This is how we’ve treated Afghans, Syrians, surely now we can reform our broken system? #r4today
At the same time, we must fight attempts to use women's rights as a shield for the government's heinous #NationalityAndBordersBill.
The Bill will harm men, it will harm women, it will harm children. The Bill is designed entirely to harm all refugees. refugeewomen.co.uk/legal-opinion-…