“When the Daily Mail have screaming headlines about refugees landing on the coast of Kent, they should spare a thought for a minute [& ask] why would somebody risk everything to get into a rubber dinghy, to cross the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to try & get to a place of safety if they weren’t totally desperate?”
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jeremy Corbyn has slammed de-humanising attacks from right-wing politicians and media outlets on refugees, arguing that “when the Daily Mail and others have screaming headlines about refugees landing on the coast of Kent, they should spare a thought for a minute [and ask] why would somebody risk everything to get into a rubber dinghy, to cross the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to try and get to a place of safety if they weren’t totally desperate?”
He made the comments as part of Labour Outlook’s upcoming exclusive interview between the former Labour leader and Laura McAlpine, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate in Harlow in the last election, who after commenting on recent Tory attacks on the most vulnerable, asked him if he saw the recent attacks on refugees as being about divide and rule.
Agreeing that this was “very much” the case, Jeremy slammed much right-wing media coverage with regards to refuges for failing to mention that “Refugees are people looking for a place of safety [and] they are victims of environmental disaster, of human rights abuses, of war [and] of economic deprivation.“ and said the time has come to “start thinking about the humanity of it.”
Reflecting on some personal experiences, he added that “Anyone who’s been to a refugee camp – and over my life I’ve been to many refugee camps – [will see] they’re all sad places, but they’re also full of people that want to achieve something in their lives and want to contribute to the lives of the rest of us.”
He also pointed out how UK backing for US-led wars and interventions in recent years has contributed to the global refugee crisis, pointing out the “war in Iraq drove so many to refugee camps, [as did] the war in Afghanistan,” and argued that going forward we must “think of our foreign policy as well” when it comes to discussing these issues.
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