I HAVE a priority that each one this negative rhetoric — which just isn’t based, much of it, on an ideal deal of credible evidence — goes to be damaging to the lifetime of a few of our faithful church communities, who are attempting to supply support and pastoral care to actually vulnerable people. And I also think that there are wider questions for what form of a society we would like to be.
In recent years, about three-quarters of the individuals who have sought asylum on this country have been granted refugee status, and the way we treat those people from the day they arrive makes a difference to how well they may integrate and discover a recent sense of belonging, and have the opportunity to contribute well to society.
The process begins from day one. Now, in the event that they don’t get the leave to stay, that’s high-quality: let’s manage those processes efficiently and quickly, and arrange for them to be removed. The problem is that, on the minute, people aren’t being processed, they’re hanging in limbo in a hostile environment, with none thought to good and positive integration. And churches are certainly one of the groups which might be offering an environment through which people can integrate.
They’re not the one group — there are other faiths’ groups, there are charities, there are civil groups, and so forth and so forth — but I’m fearful that each one of that can get eroded, because people will develop into very fearful and anxious about doing the unsuitable thing in the event that they befriend any person.
WITH regard to the method [of the Select Committee hearing], I suppose I used to be disillusioned. I went genuinely wanting to have an open, honest, transparent conversation, to try to get beneath the skin of the headlines, and the form of polarised binary opposites. But I discovered it very difficult to try this.
It felt like an imbalanced panel: and it felt like they’d include their minds made up, wanting to attack and trip up the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury. And it felt very confrontational, as an alternative of with the ability to have an open, honest conversation.
There was just a way that they desired to prove something: they kept asking in regards to the Archbishop as if he runs the Church of England like a CEO. It felt like there was an agenda. And, , I used to be surprised that a select committee can meet when it’s so apparently lopsided. It appeared to me that in a parliamentary system there could be just a little bit more even-handedness.
I offered on several occasions — and I genuinely meant it, and still mean it — to work with the Home Office, with the Government. We even have our own role to play, but we would like to try this in a supportive way. We’re not wanting to position ourselves as anti-government, nevertheless it appears like sometimes we’re getting pushed into that corner.
I sense that there’s a huge frustration with the indisputable fact that that the Bishops should not going away and being silenced [on the Rwanda plan]; that we’re just reiterating the identical things over and once again. And I feel that frustration is spilling over into attacks on the Church of England, and accusations that don’t have the evidence to support them.
The Home Office minister who got here in after me also said that the evidence isn’t there to support the previous Home Secretary’s accusation that we’re, on an industrial scale, scamming the system. It’s really serious if the Government, and politicians, just say things that they don’t have the evidence to support, because those things get captured in headlines, and so they impact what public opinion is. I feel that’s potentially really troublesome.
I WOULD encourage our churches to proceed offering support and welcome, as we at all times have done, and as is our role in society, but additionally to be mindful of at all times being honest and truthful, and throughout the bounds of what’s legal. We should not there to make assessments about asylum cases: I feel we should be clear about that. We’re not there to try this. But neither should we draw back from doing what we’ve at all times been called to do for hundreds of years, and can proceed to accomplish that.
I hope that in time — because a whole lot of that is about relationships developing — if we are able to construct on some positive relationships that we have already got, with ministers and so forth, and are available to a spot of greater trust, and in the event that they need to take us up again. . . I used to be absolutely real in my offer: if you must see among the work that’s occurring in our churches, we are able to arrange visits for you. Come and see, after which make your assessment. If you’re really interested, then take up my suggestion of taking a look at this issue in a longer-term, more rounded way, and are available and visit.
I THINK there’s a specific amount of dehumanising [going on in the debate], and I see this happening on a regular basis, once we just speak about “them”, as in the event that they’re this sort of disembodied category of people who find themselves criminals and are attempting to scam us, and so they’re just in spite of everything this country’s got to supply. It lacks the understanding that, behind every figure, behind behind every statistic, is a human being with a story, and a really complex, often traumatic, story.
It’s really difficult to make value judgements about people and circumstances that we are able to’t really even begin to grasp. And yet the difference between so called “us” and so called “them” is paper-thin: if our circumstances were different, that may very well be our experience.
I used to be within the report stage of the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week [News, 8 March], and I made a reference to age assessments, and asked, “Would any of us want this for our kids or grandchildren, for somebody to take a guess whether or not they’re a baby or an adult, after which send them to Rwanda?” And it really evoked quite strong responses from some people, because I feel you’re then confronting individuals with the fact, and the response was, “No, I wouldn’t try this, and I wouldn’t put them on a ship.”
My response was that I can’t make that judgment, because I can’t begin to assume how desperate any person should be as a way to try this. And it’s a part of our Christian story and heritage: it’s the story of Moses, his mother, who was so desperate that she put her baby in a basket on the water.
I’m not saying which means everybody has a right to have their asylum claim accepted, which is what we always get accused of. If we had more protected and regular routes, where we could assess people quickly, and have integrity and justice and fairness, no one’s going to criticise the indisputable fact that some people won’t meet the standards, and so they won’t get permission to remain.
I don’t want to say any any form of special pleading after I speak about these issues compared with anybody else [owing to her experience of fleeing Iran when she was a child]. My situation was very different: my landing was soft compared with what people face now, for all types of reasons. But I do have a way of that desire to make a fresh start, the need to belong, the need to contribute, the need to be seen as a fellow human being — all of those things that are just common human experiences and emotions.
We are making it so difficult on this country, and we’re undermining the big advantages that we’ve had from so many immigrants and asylum-seekers over time. Now, again, I’m not wanting to say it’s easy, that it’s black and white, and to return to the binary and the polarised. These are complex things, and there are difficult decisions to be made, but they will’t be made in the warmth of the rhetoric.
