Theresa May is ‘pandering to populism’ at the UN conference on refugees & migrants

Date: 19 September 2016

Responding to news of what prime minister Theresa May was planning to say at the UN conference for refugees and migrants, Alex Scrivener, the policy officer for Global Justice Now said:

“Theresa May is simply pandering  to populism by building more walls and instituting ever stricter controls on the movement of people, and it will have devastating consequences. As history has shown time and time again, it just doesn’t work and leads to needless loss of life. Instead of trying to dismiss vital rescue missions in the Mediterranean as a “pull factor” for migrants, the UK government should step up efforts to provide safer ways for these people to come to Europe.

“We cannot try and divide desperate people into refugees and economic migrants as if fleeing from extreme poverty was somehow illegitimate. The reality is that there is no such thing as a migrant crisis. We are seeing a crisis of war, oppression, extreme poverty and inequality. Unless these root causes are dealt with, there will be no end to this crisis.”