Update 23 September: Lib Dem Cllr Max Wilkinson from Lib Dem-run Cheltenham has been in touch to say Cheltenham has accepted four refugee families. Our figures as originally published were based on the latest available official report from Whitehall. We are happy to make this amendment.
At one point in his Party conference speech yesterday the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron really pumped up the moral indignation. He claimed the UK was “mean and not pulling its weight” with regard to the “biggest crisis facing our continent since the Second World War”: we are failing to take our share of refugees.
This is a topic about which Farron speaks with great frequency.
In his speech he recalled a visit last year to the Greek island of Lesbos, where some Syrian refugees had arrived in a flimsy boat”. A New Zealand aid worker shouted at him: “Stop handing out bottles of water, and take some effing refugees.”
Farron added: “This government wants us to forget this crisis. It’s too difficult to solve, too risky to take a lead. But we have not forgotten, we will not forget, those children could be our children, how dare the Government abandon them.”
In fact the British government has agreed to take 20,000 “effing” Syrian refugees – from camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The UK will not take them from Greece. That is for a very good reason. If the refugees think they will have a better chance of entering the UK if they first make it to Greece that encourages them to risk the journey – as they pay people smugglers for a place in the very type of “flimsy” and overcrowded vessel Farron described.
Hugely powerful symbol of govt’s inaction on refugees. World leaders must commit to change at #refugeesummit @ircuk https://t.co/N4pgUFRS09
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) September 19, 2016
According to the UNHCR 6,300 refugees have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean during the last 18 months.
That still leaves Farron’s central message, which would seem to be that the UK
should take far more than the 20,000 so far agreed for the course of this Parliament. There is a strong case for that. But it is not just a matter for central Government. The arrangement is that while central Government sets the target and agrees to provide the funding it is for local councils to find the accommodation. The councils are not forced to take any but so far 2,800 Syrian refugees have been accepted.
That is not a trivial number but the rate at which councils agree to take refugees will have to accelerate sharply if the 20,000 figure is to be reached by 2020. Announcing a new target of 40,000 or 100,000 would seem unrealistic unless councils were forced to take far more – which as champions of localism is not something the Lib Dems have called for.
Thank you to all marching today in solidarity with refugees. We mustn't forget the plight of millions-the govt must do more. #WeStandWithYou
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) September 17, 2016
The answer therefore for those who wish more refugees to be welcomed is to challenge their local councils to accept more. Here the Lib Dems have the means for their own salvation. While they are not the force in local government that they once were there are still several councils controlled by that Party. No doubt there were Lib Dem councillors from those areas that took part in the spontaneous
standing ovation in response to Farron’s emotive plea.
So what moral lead have the Lib Dem councils given? How many of the 2,800 Syrian refugees have been made welcome by that Party’s local authorities? The answer, according to the latest set of official figures, is nil.
Tim Farron’s own Lib Dem-run council of South Lakeland is among them. As the local MP does he not speak to the council leader Cllr Giles Archibald? Has the subject not cropped up?
If the Lake District is considered too remote to be concerned with such matters, what of the London Borough of Sutton, a long standing Lib Dem bastion? That Council is yet to admit a single Syrian refugee.
Has Farron challenged the Council leader Cllr Ruth Dombey about this? Perhaps Tom Brake, the Lib Dem’s Foreign Affairs spokesman, might mention it to her. He represents Carshalton and Wallington and thus is a local MP.
Then there is Watford where the Lib Dems not only have a majority of councillors but a Lib Dem, Dorothy Thornhill, is the directly elected Mayor. That’s the system that is meant to encourage bold decision making. But Mayor Thornhill would seem to have other priorities – not a single home in Watford has yet been found for a Syrian refugee.
How have the other Lib Dem councils coped in “pulling their weight” and showing the world that we are not a “mean” place? Eastbourne has taken none. Eastleigh zilch. Oadby and Wigston (in Leicestershire, since you ask) has also yet to find a home for a single one.
It shouldn’t be that hard for Farron to spot a pattern emerging. Does he not know about the record of his own councils? Or does he not care? It seems that it proved expedient not to cause trouble for himself. Party unity was put ahead of those languishing in camps in miserable conditions.
The Lib Dems have long been notorious for their duplicity and hypocrisy. But surely Farron’s speech yesterday marked a new low. Offering sanctimonious attacks on the Government while ignoring the deplorable record of his own local authorities was utterly contemptible.
