A new model for migration: homes for Ukraine
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This week, my wife and I went to Stanstead Airport to greet the five Ukrainians we’ve sponsored to come over to the UK and stay in our home. I began this process two months ago in my capacity as chairman of my village Parish Council. The idea was to apply as a super sponsor, so that several households could host families. We would be creating a small community of Ukrainians in our Bedfordshire village.
Initially, this idealised notion of what we could do was positive, when I got our application accepted within three days. However, this fell flat when I realised this “acceptance” was little more than an automated email saying “we have received your application”. If you remember the Government was coming in for flak at the time for doing too little for refugees; it became apparent this was a face-saving PR exercise.
I then had about a month of trying to get people into our community but failing. We tried to help an elderly couple, but they ended up going to Germany after encountering the huge barrage of red tape when applying for a UK visa. The same red tape overload was experienced by a mother and her teenage son, who ended up going to Spain. I understand the need for checks, but some of the questions seemed ridiculous, such as whether the applicant thought themselves an upstanding citizen or whether they had participated in a genocide or committed war crimes.
The super sponsor “thing” just wasn’t a thing at all. It was clear the only way to navigate the system was as an individual working in tandem with a Ukrainian family. After being introduced to the mother of the family we were to sponsor, I spent four hours on a Zoom call helping her fill out the application. It took the mother a further six hours to complete the process. Remember: this is just the initial form-filling bit. Ten hours is too long, when most questions serve no purpose. Additionally, there were glitches in the system which delayed the application, plus all sorts of technical nonsense which was beyond my simple brain.
My local authority simply doesn’t have the resources to complete the checks demanded by central government, though our house was inspected by a lovely lady from environmental health. The criminal checks took far too long; a process still unfinished by the time the family arrived. The resources the refugees will need once they’re here are not enough. For example, the family we’re sponsoring decided to delay their arrival to the UK for around a week as the mother was suffering from acute dental pain. We decided it would be easier to get her teeth sorted in war-torn Ukraine than try to get access to an NHS dentist in Bedfordshire.
It cannot be right that it takes two months to sponsor a refugee and offer access to safety within British borders. Politically, the Homes for Ukraine system flies in the face of any image of “Global Britain” or a government trying to cut red tape and bureaucracy. Culturally and ethically, the British are better than this.
Despite its shortcomings, however, this sponsorship system could be the acorn of something revolutionary in the way we grant refugees entry to this country. The chattering classes are always awash with wet liberals, such as myself, who are furious about the lack of action from governments when it comes to refugees. Much of this criticism is deserved: take, for example, the shabby way we treated “our” Afghans trying to get here last summer. But Michael Gove’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has given British families who have the room and means the opportunity to do something about refugees. It’s a charitable market economy solution: the number of refugees we take into the country is dependent on the number of people willing to provide sanctuary. In its current form the system is too bureaucratic and too cumbersome, but it could be developed into the democratisation of immigration.
There’s another way to treat refugees. It’s a top-down approach, centralised from offices in Westminster, expensive… and nasty. Sending people to Rwanda is a base type of politics, and the more charities and clerics object, the more it proves the Government’s point: it works politically. I know everyone landing on a beach in Dover isn’t a genuine refugee. It might be that the majority are economic migrants, but if ever there was a populist policy worthy of Donald Trump, then this is it. Sending migrants to Rwanda is morally wrong, but can play well on the doorstep, even if it doesn’t work and costs a fortune.
UK immigration policy could be something which helps the needy throughout the world, especially people trapped in war zones. We have the start of an intelligent policy which could be held up as a beacon throughout the globe. It could be a policy that digs into what is best about community and charity. Or UK immigration could be expensive, centrally planned, cruel and dysfunctional. Which way we go will tell us much about the reality of post-Brexit Britain.
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