550 people signal their concern about the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Here is the petition, concerning the Nationality and Borders Bill, which we presented to our MP Sally-Ann Hart on Friday 15th October. Over 550 people across our small town signed this petition in the space of a few days, a very strong sign of the growing anxiety about the unprecedented harshness of the Bill and its likely effects upon thousands of desperate people seeing refuge from persecution and war.
PETITION TO SALLY-ANN HART, MP.
PLEASE OPPOSE THE INHUMANE AND UNLAWFUL ASPECTS OF THE NATIONALITY AND BORDERS BILL
Dear Sally-Ann Hart,
Very many people in your constituency feel great compassion for people seeking safety with us but who cannot find a safe route, including people from Afghanistan. We believe that the legislation proposed in the Nationality and Borders Bill now going through Parliament does not reflect the feelings and wishes of a majority of people here and across the UK.
We do not want to see the appalling cruelty of ‘offshoring’ – so powerfully documented from the Australian experience; or the taking away of the internationally-defined legal right to claim asylum from those for whom coming in a tiny dinghy was the only way of getting here; or the criminalisation of desperate people seeking refuge with us, and also of anyone who helps them to enter the UK (this could be your constituents who might pull a floundering dinghy to shore, or indeed the RNLI who have received huge and unprecedented support recently in the face of this possible criminalisation of their lifesaving and heroic activities); or the mass asylum camps already in active planning, where people are very likely to be held indefinitely, and from where they would be deported if the Government finds somewhere to deport them to.
As caring people, we feel that supporting our fellow human beings who need help is the right thing to do. Please will you ensure that the Bill creates a fair asylum system that reflects most people’s intrinsic kindness.
It is not how people come to us that matters, but why.
Wherever we come from, we all have a right to feel safe.
