Politics: Let’s work with the EU to solve crisis in the ‘Jungle’

Earlier this month I visited what has become known as the ‘Jungle,’ the migrant camps at Calais.

This was arranged by BBC Radio Kent for the first live outside broadcast by a British broadcaster at the camps. We had earlier done a radio breakfast slot from Calais town centre and a listener phone-in about what we were expecting to be a very tough issue – the migrant camp full of people wanting to come to the UK.

As it turned out, overnight the photo of poor little Aylan Kurdi, washed up on the beach at Bodrum, had hit the newsstands. This instantly shifted the mood of the British public.

Despite having seen and heard about the many desperate people drowning in flimsy boats, the 71 people who died of suffocation in the back of a lorry in Austria, and the plight of refugees tear-gassed and hit with batons, nothing touched the hearts in the same way as this tragic picture.

Perhaps it was the fact that so many of us have just returned from beach holidays with our own children which drove home our shared humanity – this could have been our child. It was a stark reminder that the thousands of people fleeing war and persecution and taking treacherous journeys to reach the EU are all human beings just like us.

The camps in Calais are makeshift with scant sanitary facilities, no food preparation areas worth mentioning and filled with desperate people. I was shocked by what I witnessed. The conditions are filthy. This is where the ‘swarms’ David Cameron described struggle to survive, gradually losing hope for a better life. I met Syrians, Afghans, Eritreans and Sudanese men and children. Many had undergone appalling journeys to get there. Most are desperate to leave the camp and get to the UK.

Are they all queueing up for the promise of housing benefits, handouts and a life of plenty? It’s unlikely as asylum seekers receive less in England than they do in many EU countries. Figures published by independent fact checking organisation, Full Fact UK, show Norway supports asylum seekers the most, with a £53.74 adjusted weekly rate, followed by the Netherlands (£48.85) and Germany (£46.88). Of the seven European countries compared, the UK gives the lowest monetary support to asylum seekers, at just £36.95.

These figures take into account living costs which so many reports fail to, with many statistics flying around the media that are either inaccurate, or deliberately misleading. The danger with such widespread misinformation is that it plays into narratives of hate, perpetuating a dangerous ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality.

To put a monetary argument upon matters of human life is a gross misunderstanding of desperate people seeking asylum in the UK. Having spoken to the refugees in Calais, it is clear that they do not create a spreadsheet of the relative monetary advantages of living in different EU countries , but instead they are driven by social factors. They speak good English, some have relatives and friends here. Most just told me they liked Britain, and they hold our nation in high esteem. I met a young man from Eritrea who had been forced to become a soldier at 15. He had seen terrible things. He is not alone. Boys as young as 11 have been known to be unlawfully conscripted to their expanding army, and recent reports confirm that under-18s are regularly forced into compulsory military training. This vulnerable young man had known nothing but hardship and suffering since he was a young boy, fleeing and risking his life leaving a country that had not cared for him in the hope that Europe may give him a normal life. It was illegal for him to leave and he risked his life by simply crossing its border.

I met two boys aged 13 and 15 who had travelled from Afghanistan on their own. I can only wonder at what they had been through, they looked old beyond their years. Why are they not being cared for as vulnerable children by the French authorities? Instead they are left in a huge camp of angry people. Vulnerable, unfed and dirty.

Are there economic migrants in the Jungle? I am sure there must be, although I didn’t see any. Until they are interviewed and processed we can’t tell. What is certain is unless we build a truly common European asylum system, thousands will continue to perish making the perilous journey into the EU and thousands more will continue to be left in a limbo in places like Calais, Ventimiglia and Budapest. It is inhumane to allow this suffering to continue. Mr Cameron and Mrs May’s political posturing in the face of this tragic suffering has been embarrassing to watch. Theresa May has conflated three distinct issues – free movement within the EU, immigration from outside the EU and asylum-seeking refugees – and is willingly confusing the public in the process. She is pandering to people’s worst instincts instead of standing up for humanity, decency and compassion.

This is not the British way of doing things. We have a long and proud tradition of looking after the vulnerable and those fleeing conflict and persecution.

This week the European Commission came forward with a plan to redistribute up to 160,000 refugees more equally around the EU. This would be the first step towards creating an EU-wide system which offers safe and legal routes into Europe, sets up more reception centres to process refugees and distributes them more evenly around EU countries.

On Wednesday, the UK government opted out of this scheme. In doing so, not only did we lose the respect of our partners in the EU, but we said to those desperate children I met in Calais that we would not help them.

The commitment by the UK government to rehouse 20,000 refugees over five years goes nowhere near far enough to address this crisis. Only by working together at the EU level can we address the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, and prevent any more young children being washed up on Europe’s shores.