LONDON: Some British people are mainly concerned about the prospect of more “brown people” coming to the UK and would welcome other migrants, according to the Right Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the bishop of Dover.
She told the BBC’s HardTalk program that she finds it “interesting” she had not heard any concerns about people arriving from places such as Ukraine or Hong Kong.
Jamaica-born Hudson-Wilkin, who in 2019 became the first black woman appointed bishop by the Church of England, said some British people “do not understand their own history.”
She added: “I love to remind the British that they were economic migrants when they went to Africa, when they went to Asia, when they traveled to the Caribbean. They wanted to improve their lives; that’s what these people are doing.”
It is because of global historical ties such as these that so many people around the world feel “a natural affinity and connection” with the UK and want to come here, she said.
More than 8,000 migrants have crossed the Channel on small boats so far this year, many of whom had fled some of the world’s poorest and most unstable countries, the BBC reported.
The government’s Illegal Migration Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament, will give ministers the power to deport, to Rwanda or another “safe country,” anyone who arrives in the UK through illegal channels, and bar them from claiming asylum.
Hudson-Wilkin said she was “appalled” by the legislation because “since time immemorial, people have moved, people have picked themselves up, picked their families up and decided (to go) where life is better.”
It is “wrong to compare and set vulnerable groups against each other,” a government spokesperson told the BBC.
“The UK has a proud history of supporting those in need of protection. Our resettlement programs have provided safe and legal routes to better futures for hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe.
“However, the world is facing a global migration crisis on an unprecedented scale, and change is needed to prevent vile people smugglers putting people’s lives at risk and to fix the broken global asylum system.”
The spokesperson added that Rwanda is “a fundamentally safe and secure country with a track record of supporting asylum seekers.”
