DAVID Pratt’s latest article (“Decision on child refugees show a lack of humanity”, The Herald, April 29) was a tour de force. In it he holds up a mirror to the failings of the UK Government in their inhumane disregard for the child victims of the refugee crisis. And they are innocent victims. You can sense how David Pratt burns with righteous indignation at the refusal of the Tory Government to meet its humanitarian obligation to unaccompanied child refugees (“PM mocked for saying child refugees in Europe are safe”, The Herald, April 28).
What has become of us? How have we come to this? We were the country that welcomed the Jewish children on the Kindertransport fleeing Hitler’s Germany. We were the country that after the war, when we were almost bankrupt, gave refuge to thousands of displaced persons.
Now here we are. One of the most prosperous countries in the world and we baulk at giving refuge to just 600 child refugees a year for five years into a population of more than 60 million.
The SNP Government was in the forefront of welcoming refugees to Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon made it clear that we are able and willing to take more than our allocation. It would appear, and I hope it is true, that the people of Scotland have a more welcoming attitude to refugees than the anti-immigration attitudes that pertain elsewhere in the UK. But the fact remains that we in Scotland are powerless to form our own policies with regard to welcoming child refugees. Immigration is a reserved matter. Like Mr Pratt I am ashamed at the attitude of the UK Government on this issue. I long for the day when Scotland will be an independent country able to take its own decisions on matters of great humanitarian importance.
Patricia Dishon,
62 Inchview Terrace, Edinburgh.
I FIND, in this part of southern Perthshire, in the usual farmers' fields, great big posters encouraging me to vote for Ruth Davidson. It may surprise these local farmers to learn that I cannot, for the simple reason that she is not a candidate here. Indeed I have not the faintest idea who is the Tory candidate here: no-one has bothered to tell me.
Now Ms Davidson, like Kezia Dugdale, is an interesting politician with much to offer Scotland, but both of them are wrapped in the Union Flag and that flag, honourable as it has been from time to time, and under which many of our forebears served with honour and distinction, is now no more than a rag of contempt for the weak and infirm and vulnerable. Despicable as the British state can be on occasion it never occurred to me that a vote for Better Together would involve the shared guilt of abandoning 3,000 children to fall prey to traffickers and pederasts.
By refusing to allow defenceless children sanctuary in this UK the elected Tories in the chamber of the Commons brought shame upon my head last week and Ms Davidson and her ilk will struggle hard to remove it.
Surely there is only one way now for this little nation of ours to rid herself of such disgrace, and our opportunity lies in our hands on Thursday.
KM Campbell,
Bank House, Doune.
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