Alison Thewliss – 2022 Speech on Removal of Asylum Seekers to Safe Countries

The speech made by Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2022.

At this time—in this moment when four people have died and 40 have been rescued in the channel—the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has chosen to introduce this offensive, grubby, dangerous wee Bill. He should be ashamed of himself, and if he had any sense or compassion he would have withdrawn it today.

I will take no lessons from him on immigration. Glasgow Central has the highest immigration caseload in Scotland, and I am proud that that is so. In Glasgow Central, I am proud to say, nearly 25% of its people were born outside the UK, and we benefit hugely from that. Stoke-on-Trent North has only 7%, as a matter of fact.

The Tories would have us ignore the European convention on human rights and the 1951 refugee convention. They would have us ignore the very humanity and compassion that human beings feel when recognising the plight of others—[Interruption.] I am being heckled with ridiculous comments from the Government Benches. The Tories have form in breaking international law in limited and specific ways, and they want to do so again with this Bill.

I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman has never met anyone who has fled war and conflict. He does not understand the desperation that drives those journeys. His Bill dehumanises others, fellow human beings, and the only way he can do that is by not having the compassion to listen or the imagination to feel what it must be like to stand in their shoes. I see that week in, week out at my surgeries.

This is not what Scotland wants to see. From the Glasgow girls, including my friend Councillor Roza Salih, to the Glasgow grannies, Jean Donnachie and Noreen Real, who stood up against dawn raids in Glasgow in the mid-2000s, to my constituents in Kenmure Street standing up for their neighbours and preventing their removal, we on these Benches understand the plight of our fellow human beings, and we know that we should treat them with the dignity that we would expect if we happened to be in their place.

The hon. Member talks about the Australia model. That model failed. Manus Island cost more than £1 billion a year to run, and it closed in 2017. The model failed and was hugely expensive. Talking tough and acting tough is no deterrent. They all said that the hostile environment would do it: it demonstrably failed. Then they said the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would deter people, but the small boat crossings are still happening, as we have seen so tragically today. Apparently we need more, harder, tougher legislation. That will also fail: I can tell them that now. It will fail because the people making the journeys are desperate. They are desperate to get here for safety and for family ties, because what has happened to them has been so horrific that they will run and run, and keep running until they get to a place of sanctuary and safety.

The hon. Member talked about men. [Interruption.] The men on the Government Benches shouting should listen to this. Men are also vulnerable; men who are forcibly recruited and asked to fight, and men who are forced to rape their family and their neighbours, are vulnerable. They know that they do not want to do that. They are men who we have an obligation and a duty to in this country—men made vulnerable because they supported US and UK activity in Afghanistan. As the Afghan interpreters have told me, “We are here because you were there.”

In his statements on this matter, the Prime Minister refused to confirm his commitment to the European convention on human rights or the refugee convention. The Home Secretary is chuckling away, and she ducked this issue today as well. These are the international rules and norms that protect our right to ensure human rights and the safety of people. They have been hard-won. Their existence should be a source of pride to us all, not an inconvenience to be gotten around by the Tories to suit the headlines in the Daily Mail.

The SNP stands firmly against this diminution of rights and diminishing of humanity and this treating of the most vulnerable human beings as if they were some kind of mere cargo to be shipped off. An independent Scotland will take our place in the world, live up to our international responsibilities and ensure that those who do us the honour of coming to Scotland are welcome, supported, made safe and allowed to rebuild their lives. No one is illegal; this Bill just might be. Please object to it.