The public’s compassion for violently displaced Ukrainians is dramatically out of step with our politicians’ cruel indifference
British political culture is nearly as hostile to self-reflection as it is to refugees. When the Spectator splashes on Britain “failing Ukraine’s refugees”, it might consider how its previous headlines, such as “It’s time for Boris to turn back the Channel migrant boats”, helped forge a hostile environment for those fleeing war in Ukraine. Our political discourse apparently sees no problem with the former home secretary Amber Rudd, who resigned over the Windrush scandal, now grandstanding on national radio over Britain’s lack of generosity to refugees. When she declares the need for a “wholly different” approach to Ukraine’s refugees because “we’ve got war in Europe”, her sympathy for those who have been violently displaced sounds suspiciously like the British general who told the BBC that public opinion wouldn’t tolerate “people who look and live like us being slaughtered”.
Rich countries in general fail in their duty of care to the people they have helped to make refugees. Britain is a particularly egregious example of this. Around 85% of refugees are sheltered by poor countries with few resources and weak infrastructure; and of those hosted by rich nations, a third are in Germany. As things stand, Britain has accepted only 300 Ukrainian refugees – compared with 1.2 million in Poland, more than 50,000 in Germany, 17,000 in Italy and 6,000 in Spain. This is all too consistent with our recent history. Boris Johnson’s dishonesty is cruder and less finessed than his predecessors, but his policy is consistent with theirs: he boasts of resettling more vulnerable people than other European countries, when just over 9,000 people were granted refuge here in 2020, five and half times fewer than in Spain alone.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
