During a speech at the annual general meeting of the Scottish Refugee Council last week, Roland Schilling, the UK representative of the Office of the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, said that unless British attitudes changed, the debate over asylum risked being hijacked by dangerous anti-immigrant groups.
Mr Schilling said: “I am saddened to learn that the old and proud tradition of asylum has now a mainly negative connotation in the UK. It has been disgraced.”
He warned that unless political parties stopped squabbling about migration, there was a risk that refugees would slip into a shadowy world dominated by gangsters and people smugglers.
He added: “This country needs to have a consensus on migration, instead of a very nasty public discussion which affects community relations.”
Roland Schilling, UK representative of the Office of the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees
