Calais exposes the UK’s moral failure

Before Christmas, I went to Calais.

- Zack Polanski

I stood in the mud, wind howling and rain driving down, and saw the makeshift migrant encampments that the French authorities bulldoze on a timetable as predictable as the tides. I spoke with families who have fled torture, teenagers travelling alone because their parents died on the route, and people who have lost everything except the hope that Britain might still honour its word and its values.

Every day since my return, I've thought about the children. One in five people on the small boats are children. I saw the makeshift spaces where orphaned children find a few hours of respite to play.

It's unacceptable for anyone to be living in these conditions, but to see children like this is to confront the very depths of our collective failure.

One young man from Sudan, just 19, but with the look of someone who has lived three lifetimes, told me he'd tried to claim asylum in several countries but had been repeatedly refused. Again and again, I was told the same thing: people are not allowed to stay, and not allowed to leave. "So what choice do I have?" he asked. The question wasn't rhetorical.

It was raw, desperate and damning of a government that lectures the world on human rights while physically shutting the door on those who most need protection.