The new Labour Prime Minister is going to provide refugees for those who welcomed them most enthusiastically:
There are 17 local authorities with no taxpayer-supported asylum seekers, an analysis by the Daily Mail reveals – as Andy Burnham vows to send more to middle-class areas. The Prime Minister yesterday promised to ensure arrivals are not only placed in the ‘poorest communities’ when he was pressed about proposals for a migrant camp near the tiny Oxfordshire village of Piddington.
‘All parts of the country need to play their part,’ he said – prompting the Tories to accuse him of wanting to ‘dish out another vindictive punishment beating to the UK’s middle classes’.
Asylum seekers who are waiting for a decision on their asylum claim are often eligible for accommodation and money to cover their living expenses. This is provided by the Home Office, and the migrants themselves are dispersed across the country.
Home Office figures showing the number of supported asylum seekers per local authority at the end of March reveal the areas that currently house no migrants are overwhelmingly rural beauty spots. These include the Cotswolds, Derbyshire Dales, Malvern Hills, the New Forest and the Scottish Highlands.
Others include Mid Devon, East Hertfordshire, Ceredigion (a scenic county in west Wales) and Hart, a 118-square-mile local authority taking in major towns, rural parishes and villages in Hampshire.
I think refugees and immigrants should only be permitted in states and cities where the population specifically voted to support asylum and immigration. Democracy, even in its limited form, has comprehensively failed due to its natural tendency to separate those who support the policies from the consequences of those policies. And in doing so, it becomes a potentially even more unjust system than monarchy.