THE BBC, never knowingly over-informed about Scottish affairs, found another level of political illiteracy yesterday morning. This occurred during an interview with Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Finance Minister.

Ms Forbes was asked why only one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities had participated in the UK Government’s dispersal scheme for asylum-seekers and refugees. In response, she ventured something about Scotland standing ready to welcome refugees. It was clear that this number wasn’t one she recognised.

And so, a gross distortion of the facts, amounting to an outright defamation of civic Scotland, was allowed to proceed. The reality is that all of Scotland’s local authorities have gone well beyond the limited scope the UK gives them in this area. In recent months, as the Home Office’s attitude has twisted into one of corporate dehumanisation, Scotland has struggled to contain its effects.

Currently, Britain operates a fast-track scheme for Afghans who’d worked for the UK Government (ARAP). Following the Taliban’s return to power in August this was announced with little in the way of detail, or any measure of scrutiny. Some of these men have UK citizenship, but their families don’t … and no-one knows how many.

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Scottish refugee agencies believe it’s in the region of 300 people, comprising 60 families which have been settled in local authorities throughout Scotland so far. The UK Government, though, won’t say where they are and seem determined to keep the involvement of Scotland’s most troublesome councils to a minimum.

A further 320 Afghans are in bridging hotels scattered around Edinburgh, Fife and Aberdeen. All of these are Home Office spaces. Right now, all 32 local authorities are seeking to source appropriate housing stock for large families, rather than break them up. Councils have only been told that these families, lacking re-settlement contracts, could remain like this for a year.

It’s thought that there a further 12,000 Afghans are eligible through ARAP to come to the UK, but no one knows where they are. In addition, the UK Government boasted that a further 20,000 vulnerable Afghans would be saved by the ACRS scheme, but this has yet to start and no one has been allowed to apply for it. Agencies in the field fear that the UK, cynically, will seek out Afghans who fled their country 20 years ago to make good on their summer promises.

In the last five years Glasgow has thrown its doors open wider than anywhere else in the UK, taking upwards of 20% more than they’d been asked to. Meanwhile, the Home Office is placing asylum-seekers in hotels without informing Scottish local authorities. Glasgow, in particular, is regarded as a rebel city by the UK Government for its habit of marshalling resistance to dawn raids and forced removals.

Right now, the Home Office is taking asylum seekers from Northern Ireland and the north of England and moving them into Scotland in what’s little more than forced dispersal. Put simply, they are looking for holding-pens for these people, while cutting them off from local services and even a thin patina of respect and dignity: no laundry facilities; no money; no culturally appropriate food. The UK Government regards these people as sub-human and is determined that they get the message.

We’ve been here before. In the 19th century when the extent of mass deprivation became widely apparent the British Government was forced to act by setting up poor-houses for the most destitute. Thereafter, they contrived to make conditions in these places worse than those encountered by the poorest agricultural labourer. Thus, it hoped to deter all but the most desperately poor people from seeking the state’s help. The same cruelty and callousness lies at the heart of the UK Home Office’s refugee strategy.

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The manner in which the Home Office treats refugee children borders on depravity. Britain currently accommodates most unaccompanied minors in Kent. In recent weeks, though, the local authority insisted it was no longer prepared to take corporate parental responsibility for them. When the Home Office requested help from other UK local authorities, several in Scotland immediately responded. The UK Government has now scrapped the voluntary status of this dispersal and made it mandatory among all local authorities on a per-capita basis.

The consequences of this betray callousness for the welfare of some very vulnerable children, many of whom have been trafficked or been sexually abused in short lives already wrecked beyond repair. Instead of being placed carefully in populous towns and cities with easy access to services they’ll now be scattered like human livestock with no regard for their basic needs.

All this is happening even before Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill becomes law. There are now 13 countries in Europe where organisations who support migrants have staff facing criminal charges for doing so. In Greece, 25 NGO staff are facing espionage and fraud charges – carrying eight-year sentences – for saving refugees and migrants. The Home Secretary thinks this is a gold standard and has already had extensive talks with Greece. This is the face of Britain today: snarling; hostile and cruel to those fleeing mortal peril.

The main causes of these vast movements of the world’s poorest people are wars and illegal occupations for the purpose of emptying them of their natural resources. These are followed by the inevitable regional instability which provide western corporations opportunities to deploy bribery and corruption in exchange for unregulated expansion and an environmental apocalypse.

In the UK, there is nothing any of us wouldn’t consider to make a better life for our children. So, why do many of us deny that chance to others? Does an accident of birth bring us special privileges? Are we blind to the activities of our governments in causing much of the chaos that leads these poor, poor people to our shores?

Don’t accept for a minute, though, that Scotland isn’t trying to respond well to this crisis. We have a National Refugee Strategy whose sole, over-arching aim is to mitigate the iniquities of the UK’s immigration policy. The Scottish Government doesn’t control immigration policy but it seeks to control the drivers of integration.

Presently though, it’s our tragic misfortune to be impeded by a Westminster regime specialising in crimes against humanity.

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