April 16

Unwelcome

Over centuries Great Britain has become one of the world’s most racially mixed countries.

It has done so by generally welcoming people seeking a safe haven from oppression, hardship and a desire for a new life.

There have been exceptional times and circumstances when Britain’s benevolent view on immigration was not maintained.

I can remember seeing signs, ‘No blacks No dogs No Irish’.

Overall, Britain has reason to be satisfied with its immigration policies. and throughout the nation there are mixed communities living together peacefully.

But that welcoming approach is at risk.

Suddenly the mood has changed, not by the citizens but the government that seems intent on sending a message to the world that immigrants spell disruption, danger even, and must be kept out.

If they do arrive, fleeing, from an increasingly dangerous world, they risk being despatched thousands of miles to ‘holding centres’ in Rwanda, with its formidable record of strife and disregard for civil liberties.

That is the infamous plan just announced by unfeeling, disastrous Home Secretary Pritti Patel and Boris Johnson.

It sounds as harsh and hateful as the mediaeval practice of defending a castle by upping the drawbridge and pouring boiling oil and dropping cannon  balls on would be invaders.

If the plan goes ahead, Britain will become  pariah state.

We will be divorced from countries worldwide, as varied as Poland and Germany, who have accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees from war ruined Ukraine.

Instead, Britain is in the ‘up the drawbridge’ mode, letting in a meagre few thousand.

This has been widely condemned and the only hope for it to be abandoned is for it to be proved illegal.

That may take months, with thousands of bewildered, lost citizens facing life in a country they do not know, do not want to set foot in, and which is certainly not welcoming them.