Radio 4's Sunday was busy helping the cause again today, just as Broadcasting House did recently. It started with Ed Stourton telling us that Boris Johnson "has come under fire" for removing a provision in Theresa May's Withdrawal Bill designed to help child refugees "at a time of concern about the level of local authority spending on child refugees". Then came a discussion between a loving foster parent and her grateful Muslim refugee child. And that was followed by an interview with the head of a campaigning, pro-refugee charity who found Boris's removal of the provision "disappointing" and who approved of The Observer's campaigning journalism on the issue. Ed invited him to put his case and the only challenge he made was to tell the campaigner that the numbers coming in were "still tiny next to the scale of the problem". The campaigner, as you'd expect, agreed. A short government statement was read out at the end 'for balance'. The Radio 4 Appeal is on shortly, right after Sunday, but we seem to have had one already under the guise of BBC reporting.
No "unaccompanied child" can make their way across thousands of miles of terrain, crossing deserts and oceans,fording rivers, finding food and navigating the countryside and the cities - to get to the French coast. Either they are accompanied or they are not a child (they will certainly be at least of voting age as preferred by Labour). If they are a child in France, known to the French authorities, why on earth haven't they been taken into care by the state? If not known to the French authorities, who's telling us there is an unaccompanied child there? A "charity"? Then why doesn't the charity immediately inform the French authorities, rather than leaving the child at risk? Any UK based charities not acting responsible but leaving unaccompanied children at risk should have their charitable status withdrawn.
ReplyDeleteThis is all, or at least 99%, moral blackmail bunkum being propagated by pro-immigration, no-borders partisans. It has to stop now and at least Boris has taken a first tiny step.