The government: no compassion for asylum seekers

JVL Introduction

The government has helped to place compassion and our legal obligations onto the back burner and so helped to enable the vile protests outside hotels.  Starmer and Cooper have said little if anything about the reasons  people come, let alone our role in supporting wars and economic problems in the countries from which people are fleeing.  Not even a word from Starmer, as the most senior politician in the country to try to build bridges or reduce  tensions.  Of course, it would also help if this government also had policies and programmes that would actually improve the lives of ordinary people rather than the richest in our society, instead of leaving the poorest to the clutches of Reform’s “simple solutions”.

This essay outlines many of the decisions being made to make life even more difficult for asylum seekers who, as this poem by Warsam Shire states: “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land”.  This is the reality we expect any responsible government, let alone one led by a Human Rights lawyer, to remember and prioritise. We can expect no improvement from the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

LL

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Fri 5 Sep 2025. Read the original here.