Anti-refugee policies will hurt most vulnerable - Lorna Slater

It may have got lost in the focus on Gary Linker and the BBC, but the anti-refugee Bill, announced by the Home Secretary, is a desperate and shameful attack on the rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

Lorna Slater is the minister for green skills, circular economy and biodiversity

The proposals amount to a full scale attack on the rights of refugees. If enacted, they would remove the human rights and protections of people who are fleeing some of the worst repression and the most terrible disaster zones and conflicts.

The UK government says that it wants to “stop the boats.” But the people who are being forced to attempt such perilous crossings are doing so in flimsy and dangerous dinghies.

Nobody with options would choose this. As poet Warsan Shire so powerfully wrote “nobody puts their child in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”

My heart and thoughts go out to everyone who is being forced to undertake such dangerous and potentially deadly crossings. I can’t imagine the terror that goes through someone’s head and their hearts when faced with cold unforgiving waters.

What they need is safe routes and solidarity, not an ever growing well of hostility from the Home Secretary and her colleagues.

Freedom of movement is one of the most important freedoms that we have, and can’t allow it to become the preserve of the global north.

In 2000 I arrived in Glasgow and soon afterwards I made Scotland my home.

Everybody should be allowed the same welcoming transition as I did, rather than facing the repressive and racist structures that so many refugees come up against. Nobody should have to risk their life, face detention or endure the humiliation and demonisation that is so central to the Home Office and its hostile environment.

There is nothing inevitable about the pain and suffering that such an approach inflicts. There are far better and more positive alternatives to the Home Office approach.

We could choose to have an asylum system that makes timely decisions on a humane criteria, allows people to work whilst waiting for their claims to be decided and houses them in our communities while giving them a real grounding and compassion.

The only thing stopping us is a lack of political will. We have an authoritarian and racist Tory government that is happy to fan the flames of prejudice and exploit fears for its own political ends - prioritising politics over people.

In my heart I know Scotland can do so much better. With independence, we can finally introduce a humane and progressive system that recognises the suffering people have endured.

Instead of exploiting vulnerable populations for political points, the focus should be on providing refugees with safety and sanctuary, and working to address the reasons why so many people see no alternative to uprooting their lives and taking such terrible risks.

Lorna Slater is the minister for green skills, circular economy and biodiversity