Ashamed To Be British

The Times wouldn't publish this one ... I wonder why not?

Huddled Masses That Make Me Ashamed To Be British

By Kent Barker

In a dusty box in the attic there’s a lovely little photograph of my father, my sister and my aunt on a day trip to Calais in the early 1970s.  It’s one of the joys of living here in the South East of England.  You can so easily jump onto a ferry and, a little over 90 minutes later, be sitting down to an excellent meal in a French restaurant. Since that family trip I’ve probably been over once or twice every year to buy wine and enjoy the food. 

The coming of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 was an exciting innovation and meant a couple of extra hours shopping or gastonomising. (I’m not at all sure that’s a word, but I dare say you’ll get my drift.)  It was the tunnel, though, that helped curtail ferry services to Boulogne which was always a much nicer destination for lunch.

Ever since Calais was annexed in 1347 by Edward III, the port has had a special resonance for the English.  It was a vital point of export for the British wool trade which made Kent and East Sussex so wealthy from the Middle Ages onwards.  No wonder Queen Mary declared its name would be found engraved on her heart after she ‘lost’ it to the French in 1537. Later, stout British resistance at the Siege of Calais in 1940 held up advancing German Panzers long enough to enable the Dunkirk evacuation.

Anyway, fascinating as this history is, the point I am getting around to is that a trip to Calais today is by no means the jolly outing it used to be.  On the same day I was there earlier this month, two refugees were killed 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 who have died since June.

There are calculated to be as many as 6000 people currently camping in or around Calais hoping to get to Britain.  Whether they are Asylum Seekers, or Refugees, or Economic Migrants is not certain – and may be irrelevant.  Certainly it seems that that the large Afghan and Syrian contingent are genuine refugees seeking political asylum.  But even if there are some who are motivated more by money, they’ve got themselves into a pretty desperate situation. 

Official British figures say that in the past year there have been 39,000 attempts to cross the channel illegally.  But given there are only 6000 people in the “Jungle” (what an awful term for an unofficial refugee camp), it suggests that every person has tried at least half a dozen times – and that doesn’t take into account those who have succeeded. Meanwhile French police are reported to have arrested 18,000 people in the first half of this year - every 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 and Eurostar terminal, or the sniffer dogs going from lorry to lorry in the car-parks, or the mile after mile of newly erected metal fences topped with razor-wire.

The latter is courtesy of me and you. The government has spent £9 million of our money on fences and secure zones for lorries.  The fence at Coquelles is called – in the most awful Orwellian inappropriateness - the “National Barrier Asset”.  How much better, surely, to spend the £9 million resettling refugees in Britain?

Now I am not advocating opening our borders to everyone.  But I do seriously question David Cameron’s policy of taking refugees who are a thousand miles away or more, while ignoring those at our very doorstep.  And anyway the Prime Minister’s ‘commitment’ to take 20,000 refugees over 5 years is just 4,000 a year.  By contrast Germany is planning to take in 800,000 asylum seekers this year, while Turkey already has 1.8 million Syrians within its boarders.  And don’t I remember in the late 1990s Britain agreed to taking more than a 100,000 Kosovan Refugees?  All of which makes the current ‘offer’ pretty small beer.

Knowing these hungry and desperate people are just a short distance away rather turns the fine French food to ashes in the mouth as you sit down for lunch.  But as you pour the wine you can recite to yourself 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.

ends.