The Archbishop has intervened in the Channel migrant crisis
The Archbishop of York has intervened in the Channel migrant crisis by demanding the Government uphold Britain’s “proud tradition of offering sanctuary” and reopen refugee resettlement schemes, Tim Wyatt reports in the Daily Telegraph.
The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, the second-most senior Anglican in the country, made the call in a letter to The Sunday Telegraph signed by a string of senior faith leaders.
In it, signatories call for the two refugee resettlement programmes launched by David Cameron in 2015 at the height of the migrant crisis to be resumed.
Both the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme – under which about 20,000 Syrians fleeing the civil war have been rehoused via local authorities – and the Community Sponsorship scheme have been shut down since the coronavirus lockdown began.
“Since the First World War the United Kingdom’s refugee resettlement schemes have proved a vital lifeline to tens of thousands of people who have come to the UK escaping some of the world’s most brutal conflicts and regimes,” Mr Cottrell and the others write. “We are calling on the Prime Minister and the Home Office to restart these safe and legal resettlement routes immediately.”
The leaders, who include Paul McAleenan, the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster; Harun Khan, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain; and Rabbi Charley Baginsky, the director of Liberal Judaism, said there were dozens of local community groups and councils keen to “shoulder this responsibility and continue the UK’s proud tradition of offering sanctuary and a safe home to some of the most vulnerable people in the world”.
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