15 month old Armin’s lifeless body was discovered washed up on a shore in Norway on New Year’s Day, after the boat he was travelling in, with 4 other members of his family, sank in the English channel last October. All 5 members died attempting to make the crossing between France and the UK.
Patel, who has vowed to make the Channel “unviable” for migrant boats, simply refuses to create a system that would allow legitimate asylum-seekers to apply for refuge from outside of the UK’s borders, leaving refugees desperate and more willing to make dangerous journeys in order to give their children a safe home and hope for the future.
Last year, the Institute of Race Relations reported that 292 refugees, including 36 children, have died trying to get to the UK over the last 2 decades but Priti Patel doesn’t seem to recognise how dangerous the situation is for refugees attempting to make the channel crossing. In fact, she thinks we need to find ways to dissuade refugees from even attempting to cross the channel and, rather like the evil child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, she has set about trying to find a number of devices and traps to ‘catch’ them, including floating walls and wave machines. Patel appointed Dan O’Mahoney as her clandestine Channel threat commander last August and, shortly after, we learned that they were even proposing to throw nets into propellers.
However, with everything I’ve seen over the last year, during this pandemic, I’ve come to the conclusion that this Tory government has little regard for human life. They’ve persisted with prioritising the economy over human life, which is why we now have over 152,000 Covid deaths in a population of 68 million, compared to 26 deaths in a population of just over 4,8 million in New Zealand (if we transcribe that to the UK population that would equate to approx 364 deaths). So, when it comes to Tories, I suppose if they’re happy to let thousands of vulnerable Brits die from Covid, then what’s a few dead refugee babies drowning and washing up on foreign shores? I’m betting that doesn’t even touch the sides.
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