Ashamed To Be British (2)

Hastings Interdependent Press DID publish this:

Huddled Masses That Make Me Ashamed To Be British

By Kent Barker

One of the joys of living in South East England is jumping onto a ferry and, some 90 minutes later, sitting down to an excellent meal in a French restaurant.

Sadly, a trip to Calais is by no means the jolly outing it used to be.  The day I was there earlier this month, two refugees died trying to get to England – one by a train in the tunnel and one on the motorway heading to the port.  It brought to 16 the number of deaths since June.

6000 people are currently in the Calais “Jungle” (what an awful term for an unofficial refugee camp). Home Office figures say that in the past year there have been 39,000 attempts to cross the channel illegally - suggesting every person has tried at least half a dozen times. Meanwhile French police are reported to have arrested 18,000 people in the first half of this year – averaging each person 3 times.

But these statistics are not as shocking – or as saddening – as the sight of people tramping from one end of the town to the other, hanging around in groups or sheltering under motorway bridges.  Or as upsetting as the sight of van-loads of police blocking entrances and exits to the Port or the miles of newly erected metal fences topped with razor-wire.

The latter is courtesy of me and you. Our government has spent £9 million on secure zones for lorries.  The fence at Coquelles is called – with Orwellian inappropriateness - the “National Barrier Asset”. 

I am not advocating opening our borders to everyone.  But I do seriously question Cameron’s policy of taking refugees who are a thousand miles away or more, while ignoring those at our very doorstep.  And the ‘commitment’ to take 20,000 refugees over 5 years means just 4,000 a year.  By contrast Germany is planning to take in 800,000 asylum seekers this year.

 Knowing these hungry and desperate people are so near rather turns the fine French food to ashes in the mouth. As you sit down to lunch try reciting the stanza by Emma Lazarus that adorns the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Sometimes I’m rather ashamed to be British.

Read more at: KentCountryMatters.Blogspot.Com