The Jungle in Calais, the island of Kos, the border of Macedonia and Greece – these are all points at which refugees have converged, seeking a better life. Yet our (UK) government’s rhetoric remains unchanged. “We need to protect our borders”, says David Cameron, an excuse to ignore the problem. We’re not advocating letting everyone in, but we’re asking for policy to be based on compassion. Instead of “How do we keep these people out?”, we should be asking “How best can we help these people?”

People. That’s all they are, they are not migrants, they are fellow human beings, yet the media, much of it, until very very recently, until images of drowned children washed up on shore reared themselves on social media, has been negative. So let’s see this as an opportunity to help our fellow human beings and give them the first true glimpses of hope they’ve seen in a long while.

Guaranteed, these people will pay this country back with hard work, gratitude and add to the beautiful cultural melting pot that is Great Britain.

Featured image from Greens EFA on Flickr in accordance with Creative Commons

A Human Crisis

Cameron would have us believe they’re a swarm
Come to camp out on our lawns
Taking food from our children’s mouths
Invading in thousands from the south.

“People know what I mean”, he says,
Not like cockroaches, rats or locust plagues,
These people who have travelled far
Across the choppy waters in the dark
Having already worked harder than we ever will
Toiling against oppression, violence, and endless ills.

They are strong, they have proven themselves worthy
They have mustered these last bursts of strength to make this journey.
Children in tow, dead left behind,
No time for tears, they’ve had to survive.

Meanwhile we: Latte’s in our laps or ales in our glasses,
We discuss bringing in the army,
To tackle these most desperate hordes
That sleep in tents pitched out of doors.

See, the discussion has been set, we argue within defined parameters,
We think we know it all, are smart and informed but we’re amateurs.
Arguments bounce between ones and zeros
Each choice a brand of fear though.

And so our brave leader says, “privilege for all”,
It’s a choice, didn’t you know? Be rich or be poor.
“But we need to protect our borders”
(From rampant migrant scum sewing seeds of disorder).
Well, hasn’t that attitude worked out well
For these poor souls who’ve been through hell,
Makeshift toilets dug in the ground
Injuries sustained along the way abound.

So I say “fuck you, Cameron” and your heartless narrow band,
You’ve traded empathy for some ideology you’ve picked up from Ayn Rand.
It’s that “there’s no room”, “appeal to the lowest common denominator” politics of fear,
The same shit Farage spouts while drinking beer.

I want us to grasp those last dying fragments of compassion in our hearts
And Instead of capitalism vs socialism vs Corbynism endlessly debated, let’s just make a start.
Come up with a plan, scrap that hundred billion quid of nuke
And prove the Great in Britain aint some fluke.
Put people right up front and call on wisdom
Not on a predatory, misinterpreted sense of Darwinism.

Tories, neo-whatevers, Blairites and tax swindling scum,
Let’s wipe those lines in sand we’ve drawn and be said and done.