9 September 2025

There is something very unseemly about mass protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers. Even if one of them has been convicted of a serious crime, it is unfair to assume that the rest of the residents are criminals too.

They are among the most vulnerable and courageous people on our planet. They have not travelled so far from home and endured unpleasant travelling arrangements for nothing. They have travelled here because we are known as an hospitable nation which cares for people in need.

Global warming is as much to blame as anything. The heating of the earth’s atmosphere is causing problems in lands where agriculture is becoming impossible. People are migrating to better lands not only to work but to feed their families - and simply to survive.

Natural disasters are consequent  on global warming and countries with poorer economies, hardly responsible for the toxic emissions which have caused this environmental crisis, are the very ones whose citizens  have had to leave home and seek a better life.

Enoch Powell haunts our national conversation and the main political parties are all talking about mass deportation as if the influx of asylum-seekers is going to be stopped anytime soon. The numbers fleeing the consequences of global warming will increase exponentially.

Our perspective needs to change – and we need to recover the global boast  that the United Kingdom is an hospitable nation which is able to make room for people in need and people who are different. For a start, it is the Gospel and, in any case, we are all children of God.