Asylum seekers still deserve our warmest welcome

IT'S almost nine years since I wrote a column for this paper, inviting people to a meeting to be held in Newbiggin by the Sea, for the purpose of creating a County of Sanctuary in Northumberland.

- Hilton Dawson

The aim was to build upon the Northumbrian values and traditions of community warmth and kindness, to welcome people who are refugees and seeking asylum and who were about to be brought to live in Northumberland under various policies of the then Conservative government.

The meeting was duly held on October 1, 2016, and attended by some 65 people, ordinary members of the public, local authority officers, refugee charities, a smattering of clergy and others from religious groups. Also, a small group of people who had come to protest the very idea of refugees and asylum seekers being welcomed to Northumberland. They were duly invited to join the meeting and to have their say.

The issues that they raised were perfectly legitimate; concerns about employment and access to council housing, about the need to keep communities safe. To their credit, all those attending shared their concerns reasonably and to be fair they were heard. Everyone acknowledged the importance of tackling such issues, without agreeing that the UK should therefore refuse to help other human beings in acute distress.