Refugee Week 2025: 'We Cannot Leave This Global Problem Up to Our Idiotic Policymakers'
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This article will not be about how closed borders don't work. The verdict for that was in long ago, and (while suicidal policymakers keep pinning their political fates on 'taking back control') the annual displacement report confirms it.
I will go into the data (briefly), but I will not waste time arguing a historical truth so incontestable it should be step 0 in our response to the 'refugee crisis'. Closed borders don't work, cool. This piece will be about what does.
To jump forward a few steps: the answer lies with us, the people, exacting the power that we are entitled to beyond marking x in a box every four years.
How Our Politicians Created an 'Island of Strangers' So They Don't Have to Make Our Lives Any Better
By presenting tougher immigration as a solution to people's discontent, Keir Starmer and others sidestep the real reasons why people feel estranged in their lives - it's a cynical and simplistic political ruse that keeps everyone alienated, writes Hardeep Matharu
Hardeep Matharu
It lies in the small day-to-day community-building that all of us do far more than we engage in party politics. And you could easily miss it, judging by stories in our media, which do more to divide society than reflect it.
First up, I want to flag some key points from the latest data on the global displacement crisis. I prefer 'displacement crisis' to 'refugee crisis' because displacement happens to refugees not because of them.
Displacement is a sad but constant reality of a planet, and species, that erupt and shake and get too hot and too cold. It affects over 120 million people and that number is growing. Governments have two choices: develop an infrastructure to deal with it, or stick their heads in the sand - and get their asses kicked.
The annual report, by UNHCR, makes one thing clear: governments are burying their heads in the sand. The first number I looked for when I opened the report was the number of people 'resettled'. This is the number of refugees who, rather than taking "illegal" and dangerous journeys to safe countries, are given lawful passage.
How Negative Media Headlines About Small Boat Crossings Are Turning Brits Against All Migrants
New research finds that disproportionate coverage of the relatively low numbers crossing the English channel is turning British people against all incomers
Josiah Mortimer
In 2024, 188,800 people were resettled, meaning if you're in need of asylum, your odds of getting it legally are 0.1%.
Not every displaced person can be resettled, of course, and war-torn countries need repopulating. These are common rebuttals, but they go without saying because the vast majority of displaced people already stay in their home countries.
In 2024, 26 million people were forcibly displaced and 10 million others returned home, meaning some 16 million people became in need of international community protection (about half the population of Tokyo); 80% of them stayed in their home countries, while 3 million sought asylum abroad (about a third of the population of London).
This is not an overwhelming number. It is also unavoidable: some people must go abroad because they will die if they do not, and because if they don't go, others cannot stay and live.
While foreign governments stick their heads in the sand, most refugees work their asses off to send money home, so that relatives squandering in displacement camps can survive.
Evidently, we cannot leave this global problem up to our idiotic policymakers. Nor do we have to.
'Keir Starmer's Painful Immigration Speech Is a Direct Affront to the Diagnosis He Was Voted in On'
The PM's white paper was not the 'evidence-led' policymaking he promised, rather it was 'cheap, short-termist, headline politics', writes Mathilda Mallinson
Mathilda Mallinson
This year's Refugee Week theme is 'Community as a Super...
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features…
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
This article will not be about how closed borders don't work. The verdict for that was in long ago, and (while suicidal policymakers keep pinning their political fates on 'taking back control') the annual displacement report confirms it.
I will go into the data (briefly), but I will not waste time arguing a historical truth so incontestable it should be step 0 in our response to the 'refugee crisis'. Closed borders don't work, cool. This piece will be about what does.
To jump forward a few steps: the answer lies with us, the people, exacting the power that we are entitled to beyond marking x in a box every four years.
How Our Politicians Created an 'Island of Strangers' So They Don't Have to Make Our Lives Any Better
By presenting tougher immigration as a solution to people's discontent, Keir Starmer and others sidestep the real reasons why people feel estranged in their lives - it's a cynical and simplistic political ruse that keeps everyone alienated, writes Hardeep Matharu
Hardeep Matharu
It lies in the small day-to-day community-building that all of us do far more than we engage in party politics. And you could easily miss it, judging by stories in our media, which do more to divide society than reflect it.
First up, I want to flag some key points from the latest data on the global displacement crisis. I prefer 'displacement crisis' to 'refugee crisis' because displacement happens to refugees not because of them.
Displacement is a sad but constant reality of a planet, and species, that erupt and shake and get too hot and too cold. It affects over 120 million people and that number is growing. Governments have two choices: develop an infrastructure to deal with it, or stick their heads in the sand - and get their asses kicked.
The annual report, by UNHCR, makes one thing clear: governments are burying their heads in the sand. The first number I looked for when I opened the report was the number of people 'resettled'. This is the number of refugees who, rather than taking "illegal" and dangerous journeys to safe countries, are given lawful passage.
How Negative Media Headlines About Small Boat Crossings Are Turning Brits Against All Migrants
New research finds that disproportionate coverage of the relatively low numbers crossing the English channel is turning British people against all incomers
Josiah Mortimer
In 2024, 188,800 people were resettled, meaning if you're in need of asylum, your odds of getting it legally are 0.1%.
Not every displaced person can be resettled, of course, and war-torn countries need repopulating. These are common rebuttals, but they go without saying because the vast majority of displaced people already stay in their home countries.
In 2024, 26 million people were forcibly displaced and 10 million others returned home, meaning some 16 million people became in need of international community protection (about half the population of Tokyo); 80% of them stayed in their home countries, while 3 million sought asylum abroad (about a third of the population of London).
This is not an overwhelming number. It is also unavoidable: some people must go abroad because they will die if they do not, and because if they don't go, others cannot stay and live.
While foreign governments stick their heads in the sand, most refugees work their asses off to send money home, so that relatives squandering in displacement camps can survive.
Evidently, we cannot leave this global problem up to our idiotic policymakers. Nor do we have to.
'Keir Starmer's Painful Immigration Speech Is a Direct Affront to the Diagnosis He Was Voted in On'
The PM's white paper was not the 'evidence-led' policymaking he promised, rather it was 'cheap, short-termist, headline politics', writes Mathilda Mallinson
Mathilda Mallinson
This year's Refugee Week theme is 'Community as a Super...
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