What type of nasty, evil cretin could oppose ‘accepting’ 3,000 unaccompanied ‘refugees’ (yes I am leaving those quotes there, for now) from Europe into Britain?
Only the hardest of hearts would refuse such a gesture – so I am pretty depressed that I count myself as one. How can I square this with my professed Christianity?
The Labour luvvies were in full swing yesterday with Saint Keir Starmer and Sister Yvette Cooper declaring it is shameful, ‘shameful’ I tell you, if ‘we’ (meaning the taxpayer) do not take our fair share of at least 3,000 unaccompanied children into Britain. Some other Labour nut-job mused that the current Conservative administration probably would not have supported the Kindertransport scheme because you know….well..you know.
But I have some hard questions that few seem willing to ask.
1) Why are these children unaccompanied? Who sent them over endless borders without friend or guardian? Their desperate parents who think it is safer in Europe unaccompanied than in a war torn country with their parents? You tell me. Fair enough, this is probably the case for many.
2) What are we going to do with these children when they arrive? Are they going into the care system? That is the British care system currently at creaking point and unable to stop sexual abuse of its own children in plain sight? Good plan.
3) Are they going to be in foster care or care homes? Where will they be placed? What happens with the language difference? Will their religious background be respected?
4) How much will it cost? Current estimates put it at £50,000 per child. What will be the impact on current education and health budgets? Do we have any details at all? We know they will be sent to schools and take priority over local children, as looked after children always get priority (rightly so). However, that is the same primary school system creaking at the seams.
5) But most of all, what will the impact be on British children already in the care system? Kent County Council has previously said it has had to move children out of the county to accommodate refugee children so there will more of this to come.
The NSPCC, giving numbers from 2014, tell us that there are 93,000 children in care in the UK. That is close to 100,000. On the one hand you could say, what is another 3,000 – at least they are safe.
But on the other hand, will Starmer and Cooper be personally telling the 93,000 children they will be making way for others coming from outside the country?
We have a shortage of foster carers in this country – every school I pass by has a poster looking for more, as do many bus stops. So don’t bother telling me that this scheme will have no impact on British children in care. It will. The truth is some British children who would otherwise have been placed in foster homes will remain in care homes as priority will be given to refugee children – at least younger ones.
Surely, our first duty is to British children in care. This scheme compromises this principle. Those who support taking refugee children are puffed up with a sense of their own moral superiority, a sense of how utterly fabulous they are compared to the evil wicked Tories. In reality, they see this as a political opportunity to turn the screw on the nasty party, but what is truly nasty is playing politics with desperate children fleeing war and neglected and abused British children in care. The shame is all those playing political games.
(Image: Freedom House)
