During the 2nd week at Parliament Square, Ben and I met with quite a few MP’s and a couple of Lords! All agreed that it was not good to make people destitute, but I learned that the problem is the politics around the issue.
It seems that the Government and MP’s are afraid of what the Tabloids (The Sun, Mail Express, Mirror, etc.) will say if they declare their intentions to house and provide financially for refused asylum seekers.They seem to be aiming for the lowest common denominator instead of leading morally and ethically.
I knew that it is a complicated issue and learned more about the complexities. But I couldn’t understand why we can’t just agree that these destitute refused asylum seekers have human rights and we are wrong to deny them those rights, let alone other ways of supporting them. Some MP’s talked of an Amnesty for those 183,000 (estimated by the Independant Asylum Commision) destitute refused asylum seekers but admitted not having any easy answers to those who will be refused after the Amnesty.
Anyway, here are the MP’s and Lords we met:
Alistair Burt MP
Conservative, North East Bedfordshire
Nia Griffith MP
Labour, Llanelli
Tony Lloyd MP
Labour, Manchester Central
Beverly Hughes MP
Labour, Stretford & Urmston
John Leech MP
Liberal Democrat, Manchester, Withington
Lord Avebury
Liberal Democrat Peer
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
Liberal Democrat Peer
John Cruddas MP
Labour, Dagenham
Neil Gerrard MP
Labour, Walthamstow
Evan Harris MP’s aides
