Saving refugee lives

How should a country deal with refugees? This week the British government received an important legal vindication of its approach: the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court ruling in January that four Syrian refugees resident in the jungle camp in Calais could travel to Britain to have their asylum applications heard here.

The Spectator’s leader, read by Lara Prendergast

Under the Dublin Regulation, which governs the handling of refugees within the EU, it ought not to be possible for migrants in Calais to travel to Britain to make asylum claims. The rules are clear: refugees must make their asylum claims in the first safe country in which they arrive. Those who have relatives in Britain — as the four Syrians did — are entitled, following a successful claim in another EU country, to seek residence here. But the initial claim must be made where they first arrive. This is an important principle because it helps distinguish between those who have fled their homeland in fear for their lives and economic migrants, who have other ambitions.

This is a distinction which means little to Yvette Cooper, who chairs Labour’srefugee task force. She says she is ‘appalled’ that the government should refuse to take refugees from the Calais camps. She has fallen into the same trap as the dozens of celebrities and virtue-seekers who have made the pilgrimage to Calais over the past couple of years to huff and puff against British policy on refugees. To them, Britain has become a uniquely callous country which is refusing to do its bit while more moral countries such as Germany open their doors to the needy.

This could not be further from the truth. Britain’s response to the Syrian crisis has been timely, generous and logical.