We are proud to provide refuge

Discussion around the issues of immigration, and the asylum process in particular, can be polarising.

- BY PAISLEY AND RENFREWSHIRE SOUTH MP JOHANNA BAXTER

Our asylum system in the UK, after 14 years of mismanagement and empty promises from successive Conservative governments, was rendered unfit for purpose.

The Conservatives used their time in office to create a system that was more focused on soundbites than substance and it did not work.

The Tories have long propagated a false equivalency between those seeking asylum - people who flee to the UK from war, persecution and unimaginable circumstances, leaving their whole lives behind them - and mass economic migration.

This false narrative serves only to allow the Conservatives to avoid responsibility for their moral abandonment of the world's most vulnerable people - and to pander to those who seek to divide our communities.

The Tories' assertion that the UK's membership of the European Court of Human Rights in any way hinders the security of our borders is false.

And it is dangerous.

I am proud that, under this UK Labour government, the UK is unequivocally committed to ECHR membership, and to working with international partners to uphold human rights and international law.