Coronavirus: UK must do more to bring home Brits stranded abroad – Kenny MacAskill

The overall Foreign Office strategy has been lamentable, writes Kenny MacAskill.

Passengers arrive at Gatwick airport after a repatriation flight from Peru but the UK Government must do more (Picture: Adam Davy/PA Wire)

I’ve been dealing with constituents abroad as lockdown has struck. East Lothian isn’t the most cosmopolitan community and so others must be even more pressured.

They’ve varied from volunteers in central America, through holidaymakers in Europe or South America to points even further afield and others adrift on a cruise ship in the high seas. Almost a latter-day Exodus, even if more comfortable.

Whilst Foreign Office staff have been hard working, the overall strategy of the department has been lamentable. The initial declaration by the Foreign Secretary was that evacuation would only take place in extremis. Initially, perhaps, understandable.

However, the advice of contacting your travel agent/airline and keeping in touch with the UK Embassy has proved woeful. The former weren’t flying and the latter too often weren’t responding. It’s complex but “extremis” has been reached.

A charity dealing with the young people in central America was even paying for a crisis management team, which is a euphemism for ex-military providing security.

I know how dangerous that area can be and am glad they’re now home safe and sound but the FCO assistance was far from adequate and it’s more a testimony to an outstanding charity. A few others have also drifted home.

To be fair, assistance has ramped up but it’s still far from adequate. Many remain stuck abroad and locked down in a foreign land, frightened and with funds running out.

Other nations have done much more to bring their people home, now so must the UK.