Ukraine-Russia war: UK Government is entirely at odds with British people over Ukrainian refugees – Christine Jardine MP

The BBC has taken to warning us of the distressing scenes we are about to see in its news stories about Ukraine each evening.

A young mother holds her baby in a temporary shelter for Ukrainian refugees near the Polish city of Przemysl (Picture: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images)

But it doesn’t suffice and there is no real-life equivalent for the moments when we increasingly come face to face with the actuality of Putin’s war in our own lives.

In parliament last week, an emotionally charged gathering of MPs heard a deeply moving plea from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to do whatever we can for his country and people.

I have never seen the chamber as packed or felt such a wave of common cause, even at the height of Covid, as swept over the green benches when the President appeared on screen in his fatigues looking tired, emotional but defiant.

We filled not just the benches but the spaces between and the galleries around them as we listened in a mixture of awe and horror to his personal account of what was then 13 days of Russian attacks, Ukrainian resistance and the terror of millions.

The standing ovation was heartfelt, many of my colleagues admitting to tears in the moment.

Zelensky channelled both Shakespeare and Churchill at times as he told us that Ukraine will “not give up and will not lose”. And there was perhaps one flash of frustration in his audience when he thanked the Prime Minister for all his support but asked us to do more for the millions now fleeing for their lives.

It is an appeal which many others had already made.

There is an old cliché about no news being good news but this seems desperately inappropriate in the silence with which the government seems always to speak about Ukrainian refugees.

Every time Home Secretary Priti Patel comes to the despatch box, she talks a lot but says little of any value to those in this country desperate to get friends and relatives out of the hell that Ukraine has become.

That was the second way in which my life was touched by the tragedy. A woman who had managed to escape to join her British husband in this country came to my office looking for help.

She and her mother-in-law explained that she had a visitor’s visa but that our authorities at the Home Office were now giving her unhelpful and contradictory advice about her status.

The unspoken fear in the room was that she could somehow be refused a spousal visa and sent back.

The silence on the issue from the Home Office for days was deafening. Eventually, gradually after numerous statements, changes of positions and explanations, it has been dragged kicking and screaming to the point where family visas are now available to those – like that woman – with family here or with passports.

And we have been promised soon we will be able to sponsor refugees to come here.

But 14 days into the crisis we had taken fewer than 1,000 people – far less than any of our European neighbours.

As of March 9, Poland had taken more than a million refugees. Hungary 200,000. And Ireland is planning to take around 100,000.

Meanwhile an opinion poll by YouGov showed us that the majority of the public – 75 per cent of us – across all ages, socio economic groups, every demographic – want refugees to be allowed to come here.

The message to our government couldn’t be clearer, nor the gap between them and the public wider.

Every day my inbox has messages from people offering their spare rooms to anyone needing sanctuary. The kindness, the desire to do something, anything to help their fellow man is uplifting. Inspiring.

The response of the British people was the ultimate antithesis of current government policy. A government who went out of their way to make life difficult for the people who needed them the most.

The only thing they seemed to offer with any sincerity at one point to those fleeing the war was the insulting possibility of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. What an advantage of being caught up in war picking fruit is. I could go on.

But the damage to us as a country, to our image abroad should not be underestimated. When my new constituent arrived at my office, my staff greeted her and her mother-in-law with tears in their eyes, as if a long lost friend or family member had suddenly appeared unexpectedly.

So why the governmental hesitancy?

I know there are concerns about national security and I understand them. But I cannot help but wonder sometimes if those in the heart of Whitehall who make these decisions have ever stopped to think how easily it could be any of us, and what if they needed sanctuary?

Because when you’re watching those BBC news sequences with the warning, it isn’t just the death and destruction that breaks your heart.

There were two families both in cars identical to those I see on my street every day. One group had arrived in a safe country and were sharing the desperation that had made them flee.

The other, a distraught middle-aged man getting into his car and saying goodbye to head, in his case, towards the fighting. And families saying goodbye to brothers, sisters, parents and children not knowing if they would meet again.

All of them showing the same defiance that their president had in that speech to parliament.

And I thought about all the young hospitality workers we often see in Scotland, Edinburgh in particular in tourist season, wearing badges to indicate the languages they speak and their homes. Some Ukrainian, some Russian.

I hope they are all safe, and if they want to be here, that they know we will look after them.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West

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