Making room for 3.000 child refugees is no hardship

On the evening of Monday, April 24, MPs voted by 294 votes (ie – 289 Conservatives, 2 Ulster Unionists, 2 Democratic Ulster Unionists and the 1 UKIP) to 276 to reject a plan for Britain to accept (just) 3,000 of the many thousands of unaccompanied Syrian child refugees, who have ended up in mainland Europe – without a parent, a guardian or other family member.

The amendment had been proposed by Labour’s Lord Dubs, who himself arrived in Britain as a child refugee fleeing the Holocaust in the 1930s.

Hansard records that both Worthing MPs; Sir Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton, voted against the amendment, in line with the other 87 per cent of total Conservative Parliamentary MPs.

Incidentally, the UK population (2015) is just over 65 million. So, understandably, finding space for (just) 3,000, lost, traumatised and vulnerable children (a 0.005 per cent addition) would have created major social challenges (www.worldvision.org). Also see House of Commons Briefing 06805, April 2017 (http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06805/SN06805.pdf).

So, compassion not in fashion these days?

Fred Shaw (Dr)

65 St Thomas’s Road

Worthing

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