The following is lifted 100% from a post by Matthew Hulbert on Liberal Democrat Voice (17th November 2025.https://www.libdemvoice.org/mathew-on-monday-labours-reformlite-immigration-crackdown-isnt-leadership-its-politics-by-fear-78723.html)
"Liberals should say this clearly: You don’t fix the asylum system by making life harder for refugees. You fix it by creating safe, managed, humane routes to the UK; by processing claims efficiently; and by helping people (not forcing them) to integrate and contribute once they’re here, as the overwhelming majority of people do.
A genuinely fair system would do three things.
First, expand safe and legal routes so people fleeing war and persecution don’t have to gamble their lives on dangerous journeys.
We know this works – it’s the safest, most cost-effective, and most
orderly way to protect people and maintain public confidence.
Second, replace indefinite insecurity with clear, timely, routes to settlement. Twenty years in limbo doesn’t deter desperate people; it simply prevents them from building stable lives, working, contributing, and integrating into our communities.
Third, enforce the rules in a way that distinguishes between criminality and legitimate asylum claims. A blanket crackdown treats human beings as a problem to be managed rather than as neighbours, workers, parents, friends, and future citizens.
Our Liberal vision isn’t naïve. Rules matter. But compassion matters too. The two can – and must – go together. A Britain that treats people with dignity is a Britain that strengthens its own social fabric and moral standing.
Labour had the chance to show that progressive government can be principled as well as pragmatic. Instead, this Prime Minister and his new Home Secretary opted for headlines over humanity.
As Liberal Democrats we must make the case for something better: an immigration system rooted in fairness, compassion, and confidence – a system that treats everyone as human beings, not political props."
Thank you Mr Hulbert. I hope our parliamentary party adopts this policy and its tone lock, stock and barrel. and so demonstrates there is till a sense common decency in Britain's political system.
As well as posting regularly on LDV Matthew Hulbert is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.
You don’t fix the asylum system by making life harder for refugees. You fix it by creating safe, managed, humane routes to the UK;
ReplyDeleteThere are several problems with that, but the most obvious is that that won't fix the problem. The main problem with the asylum system is that it is overloaded with people who are not actually refugees, but are economic migrants simply looking for a better life than they can aspire to in their home countries. Creating safe and legal routes will not stop those people coming illegally, so the system will remain just as clogged as it is.
by processing claims efficiently; and by helping people (not forcing them) to integrate and contribute once they’re here, as the overwhelming majority of people do.
Do you really not think that the minority of people who do not want to integrate and contribute should be forced to do so? I think they should, and I suspect that majority of people would agree with me.
I see no reason the dispute the final claim that " the overwhelming majority of people do [want to integrate] " For the small minority who don't, I believe that all people are free to do (or not to) whatever they want within the law, providing they do not infringe the freedom of others.
DeleteFor the small minority who don't, I believe that all people are free to do (or not to) whatever they want within the law
DeleteRight, of course everyone should be free to do what they like within the law; but the question is, should the law require them to integrate (and punish them if they do not)?
I, and I suspect the majority, think the law should require that. Do you really think it shouldn’t? If you don’t, why not?
Certainly not. To take an extreme example, if someone wishes to live as a hermit, why shouldn't they?
DeleteTo take an extreme example, if someone wishes to live as a hermit, why shouldn't they?
DeleteIf someone wishes to live as a hermit, they can do it in their own country. If someone wishes to live in our country instead of their own, do you not think it reasonable to make it a legal condition of doing so that they make an individual net economic and social contribution to our country?
Imagine my house burnt down, and you kindly agreed to let me live in your guest room until I got back on my feet. That’s basically the situation of genuine refugees: their home is, for whatever reason, inaccessible to them, and so we are generously allowing them to stay as guests in our country until such time as they can go back there.
DeleteNow, I think it would be reasonable for you to expect me, while I am your guest and therefore imposing on your hospitality, to expect me to act in a certain way: to chip in what I can afford towards the running costs of the home, to pick up a share of the chores, to show up appropriately dressed for meals and to make myself generally agreeable and try to fit in with your family.
But you seem to think that it is not reasonable to expect these things.
Why?
Roy Jenkins, when Labour Home Secretary in 1966 set out in a speech to the National Committee for the Commonwealth Immigrants, his concept of multiculturalism:
Delete‘Integration is perhaps a loose word. I do not regard it as meaning the loss, by immigrants, of their own characteristics and culture. I do not think we need in this country a ‘melting pot’, which will turn everybody out in a common mould, as one would a series of carbon copies of someone’s misplaced version of the stereotyped Englishness. I define integration, therefore, not as a flattening process of assimilation but as equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance’
I share RJ's belief, that's why.
I share RJ's belief, that's why.
DeleteEven though we now have ample evidence that what Mr Jenkins's idea (whihc has been basicaly how immigration to this country has been handled since the sixites) means, in practice, is the development of parallel societies which live alongside each other but, in the main, do not interact? That we end up with rioting in Britain because of what happens in a country thousands of miles away ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Leicester_unrest )? That we end up with a politics of ethnic 'block votes' and sectional interests?
When an idea has been proved so conclusively wrong, why cling to it?
I think that there are two main problems in your thinking. the first, a minor one, is a lack of understanding of statistics. Because all the immigrants you meet are well-integrated, you think that the majority are. But you don't realise that the ones you meet are a self-selecting sample: the ones who don't integrate, you simply never meet. Therefore you have a totally wrong picture because you are working from highly biased data.
The second, and much more serious, problem, is that you seem to think that everyone in the world is basically good and honest, and if we just try to do our best to be kind, no one, or at last so few people as to not be worth bothering about, will take advantage of our kindness and try their best to screw us over.
This horribly naive idea — I'd call it childish but really, no child could be so stupid, only adults can be that wilfully blind — is no basis on which to run a country. In reality most people in the world are not good and honest and upright, they are selfish and inconsiderate if not actively malign, and every policy in the real world must be formulated by asking 'and how can we guard this against abuse, because people will attempt to abuse it?'
Even when presented with evidence of abuse, as in the comment below which points to the radio programme in which the immigrant couple from Iran admit on record to perpetrating deliberate fraud, do not respond — presumably bcause you would prefer to simply close your eyes and sing 'la la la' and pretend the world is nice and people are nice.
Thank goodness, if you are in any way representative of your party, that the 2010-2015 abortion of a Parliament is the closest they will ever come to power!
Here's an interesting radio programme: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002k96k
ReplyDeleteYou should give it a listen. But if you don't have time, I recommend the section starting twenty-five minute in. There you will find a couple who confess to perpetrating a criminal fraud on the British taxpayers (ie, me): they are from Iran, and were in no danger in their home country, but decided, when the woman developed cancer, to come to Britain in order to obatin free healthcare to which they are not entitled.
What punishment do you think is appropriate for people who commit such a blatant fraud?