THE Archbishop of Canterbury has warned against making “irresponsible and inaccurate comments” on church support for asylum-seeker applications, after a Conservative MP accused him of “scamming” UK taxpayers.
And the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, has written to the Home Secretary deploring the “dehumanising” political rhetoric surrounding asylum-seekers, which he said had reached “recent lows” on this country.
The Church of England has been within the firing line this week, after it was reported that the suspect in last week’s alkali attack in Clapham, south-west London, said that he had converted to Christianity before his asylum claim was approved (News, 2 February).
The former Home Secretary Suella Braveman, writing in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, accused “churches across the country [of] facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims”, and suggested that migrants saw “churches as a one-stop shop to bolster their asylum case” (News, 5 February).
During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the Conservative MP Tim Loughton referred to recent reports that about 40 of the 300 migrants currently residing on the barge the Bibby Stockholm in Dorset are Christians, and that six of its residents were baptised at Weymouth Baptist Church on Sunday.
“So Christianity within the UK appears to be on the wane unless apparently, you might be from a Muslim country in the midst of an asylum claim,” he told the House of Commons. “We’re now told one in seven occupants of the Bibby Stockholm have suddenly turn out to be practising Christians.”
Citing the regular decline in regular church attendance and baptisms over the past decade, he went on to ask Mr Sunak: “Given that the Church of England has now issued secret guidance for clergy supporting asylum applications for these Damascene conversions, who’s the Church accountable to, and are taxpayers being scammed by the Archbishop?”
Mr Loughton gave the impression to be referring to a 2017 document, Supporting Asylum Seekers — Guidance for Church of England Clergy, which is out there on the Church on England website.
The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, posted on social media on Wednesday night that the “secret guidance” had been “hidden in plain sight on the web site for the last 6 or 7 years, I think. But why let the reality get in the best way of slur?”
Responding to Mr Loughton’s query, Mr Sunak said: “When it involves illegal migrants, we’d like to have a system whereby if someone comes here illegally, they shouldn’t have the ability to remain.
“I can tell [the Archbishop that] the Home Secretary has asked for more information concerning the extent to which migrants converting to Christianity is playing a task in our asylum system. And more generally under our Illegal Migration Act, anyone entering the UK illegally is not going to be granted asylum here. That’s why we’d like to have somewhere to send them and why our Rwanda scheme is so vital.”
Archbishop Welby, who’s currently in Ukraine, responded to the exchange in an announcement on social media on Wednesday evening, wherein he described the “mischaracterisation” of the Church over the past week.
“It has been disappointing to see the mischaracterisation of the role of churches and faith groups within the asylum system,” he said.
“Churches up and down the country are involved in caring for vulnerable people from all backgrounds. For refugees and people searching for asylum, we simply follow the teaching of the Bible, which is to look after the stranger.
“It is the job of the Government to guard our borders, and of the courts to evaluate asylum cases. The Church known as to like mercy and do justice. I encourage everyone to avoid irresponsible and inaccurate comments — and allow us to not forget that at the guts of this conversation are vulnerable people whose lives are precious within the sight of God.”
Archbishop Welby has been candid in his criticism of the Rwanda scheme, which the Government is attempting to enshrine in laws through the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill (News, 2 February). It will begin the Committee Stage within the House of Lords on Monday.
Bishop Chessun has also expressed concern concerning the rhetoric surrounding searching for asylum and refuge, which he said this week was “reaching recent lows” within the UK.
In a letter to the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, on Tuesday, Bishop Chessun writes that the commentary surrounding recent Bills on immigration, including the Rwanda Bill, “only stokes suspicion of rampant criminality and underhand dealing amongst those searching for safety in Britain.
“The effect of that is to dehumanise people, creating division and suspicion in our communities. Tragic stories, like that of the Clapham attack, shouldn’t be weaponised in service of political goals — as if an appalling incident equivalent to that is one way or the other characteristic of those searching for refuge on our shores.”
This approach, Bishop Chessun wrote, “doesn’t rise out of a vacuum. It pertains to lower than considerate language utilized by the governing party.”
He was, he wrote, “especially concerned that, within the yr of the General Election, the language needs to be moderated”. His letter ended with an invite for the Home Secretary to “come and see for yourself” the work of churches with the refugee community, who, he said, had “enriched our communities and deepened our faith. We owe a lot to them.”
