Absolutely. It is incompetence, and I have seen the same incompetence with the lost applications of families that my constituents are sponsoring. Sarah, for example, is sponsoring a Ukrainian family with a severely disabled son. They are unable to flee to a refugee camp and outside Ukraine because of their son’s needs. They are stuck living with the daily horrors and the sirens. They are putting their lives on the line and waiting for visas that the Home Office lost. A constituent in Old St Mellons sponsored a mother and a baby, but an error meant that only the mother was granted a visa.
I speak to families desperate for help, and frankly I am furious at how difficult this Government are making it for vulnerable families, women and children to seek sanctuary when they have been forced to leave their homes, their loved ones, their brothers and their husbands—everything they know and love, they have left behind. We are facing the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war, yet the UK’s response stands in stark contrast to that of our European neighbours. We are refusing to match the EU’s decision to offer Ukrainians sanctuary and instead are offering a limited scheme that seeks to match families and individuals online like some twisted dating app. That is what I am hearing from my constituents. When I intervene to try to help those families and my constituents who have sponsored them, the response I get from Home Office officials is to email
me back, asking me to stop contacting them. I am sure many of my colleagues have received that very same response.
Last week, I asked the Prime Minister if his 1,000th day would be his last. He lost his temper and told me that he was leading the way in standing up to Putin, but all I see are warm words and empty soundbites, and a Prime Minister more desperate to save his own skin than the lives of Ukrainians. As a world leader, the UK needs to be using its influence to bring about greater international support for Ukraine and set an example in welcoming refugees fleeing Putin’s heinous crimes, but the Prime Minister and his Government are at the moment failing in that task.
We are at a turning point in history—a turning point for our generation and our children. This war will touch every part of our humanity if it is not stopped and if we do not do all we can to prevent as much human suffering as possible. My constituents stand ready to support the Ukrainian people in need—why won’t this Government? Please, let us not be on the wrong side of history.
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