The path to citizenship the UK has choked off - to our detriment

A story of hope and anger and one man called B.

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention establishes the duty of countries to take in, and treat as their own, those who have fled their country for fear of persecution. The 149 party countries, including the UK, committed to extending kindness, compassion and welcome because it is the right thing to do. Not for economic gain. Not because it meets their geopolitical goals. But because it is the right thing to do. How rare a thing it seems now, to have morality at the heart of policy.

So today I want to tell you one refugee’s story, a young man I’ll call B. He was born in Eritrea, a military authoritarian state where citizens, especially men, must do military service with no defined end date, and many are forced into military service for their entire lives. Freedomhouse.org ranks it as the 6^th least free country in the world, equal with North Korea. UK government data from 2022-2024 shows that 97% of Eritreans who make it to the UK to seek asylum are granted refugee status.

UK Law says asylum claims must be made on UK territory but there is no humanitarian visa category that lets Eritreans come here safely. If you do not have a family member already in the UK, the only practical way an Eritrean can claim asylum in the UK is to arrive here through irregular means.

B’s family fled Eritrea when he was five years old, and he grew up in a refugee camp in Sudan (itself an unsafe country). His mother died young, so it was him and his dad, who was a truck driver. When B was 14 and desperate for his son to have a better life, his dad saved money to pay for a people smuggler to get B to the UK, promising to join him in Libya before the hazardous boat trip to Europe. However, B’s dad died before he could join him, and with no more money for the people smuggler, B was kept in a warehouse in Libya for two years and forced to work in construction. As the situation in Libya deteriorated (B explained that the night time soundscape was gunfire), the smuggler decided to bail and put all the people in the warehouse on poor quality boats and pushed them in the direction of Italy. B was lucky – he made it to the Italian coast. Following others as he had nowhere else to go and had no idea how the ‘system’ worked, he made it to Calais. There he waited in the tent city until he managed to smuggle across on a lorry to the UK (increasingly difficult – hence the attempts to cross on small boats). I don’t know why England and not another European country. Perhaps it was the place he’d heard of, or his dad said that was where he should go, or maybe even he thought that the UK was the gateway to America. Certainly, the details of detention and asylum policies were not part of his decision-making.

It had taken four years to get the UK and B applied for asylum once here aged 18. He was barely an adult who had spent four awful years without family, without education and with nowhere and no one to go back to, even if he could have. He stayed in asylum housing in the North of England for about a year before being granted asylum in the UK (backlogs are far longer now). Once granted asylum, he had a few weeks to find accommodation, open a bank account, apply for universal credit, work out how to live in a foreign country, how to make his own decisions. Daunting enough for any young man, but while waiting for asylum he’d received no education, no English lessons, no guidance on how the system works. He spoke Amharic, Tigrinya and a bit of Arabic. He initially lived up north for a year or so, getting by on universal credit, but was really lonely and wanted to find an Eritrean Church and community. The only place to find that was London, and he came here looking for a home. He found a Church but nowhere to work or live and ended up street homeless.

After a month on the streets, he met a caseworker at Crisis. She helped him apply for accommodation with the YCMA and also asked for emergency help from the charity Refugees at Home, to try to get him somewhere to live while waiting for a YMCA place. This is when I met B – he came to our house from King’s Cross Station where he’d been sleeping, with one small rucksack, very little English, and a lovely smile. He stayed with us for about two months while waiting for his YMCA place. It was Christmas, and our families bought him some new clothes while we found him English lessons and helped him with his official forms. He loved football and when I saw a Tweet offering free football tickets to refugees, I managed to get B a trip to see England at Wembley. We introduced him to the delights of Indiana Jones and Uno and curry take out, but mainly gave him the space to decompress and feel safe. We’ve stayed in touch and now it’s seven years later. So what happened to B?

With the help of the Crisis caseworker, the YMCA (where he lived for 18 months) and his Church, he found permanent work as a licenced lift operator on construction sites. He’s been working full time for years now and lives in shared housing in London. His English has improved massively and he seems settled and happy. Last year he passed his citizenship test and took his final step to safety and welcome. He invited my husband and me to his citizenship ceremony. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was genuinely one of the most moving and uplifting afternoons of my life. I started to tear up as he carefully gave the pledge of allegiance:

“I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen”

I cried as the council official then gave the words of welcome ending with “Our flag is now your flag.”. We joined him in the national anthem, and I’d never enjoyed singing it more. We took photos while she played Cliff Richard’s Congratulations on her phone - it couldn’t have been any more perfectly English.

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When an asylum seeker is recognised by the UK as a refugee, it means that the courts have determined that they are “unable to live safely in any part of [their] own country because [they] fear persecution there”. The UN Refugee Convention explicitly says (Chapter V. Article 31) that asylum seekers must not be penalised if they enter their host country illegally (many have no other option). It also says that host countries should “facilitate assimilation and naturalisation” including fee waivers for citizenship applications (Chapter V. Article 34).

The UK is making it ever harder for refugees to find safety here. Just three months ago, the Labour government upheld the Tory policy which removed the right of eventual citizenship from any refugees arriving via an ‘illegal route’ – despite there being no legal routes for almost all potential refugees. If another B arrived now, they would likely have experienced even greater hardship getting here and then face far greater hurdles in finding safety and a home in England. They’d never be welcomed as a British citizen. This is morally wrong and I am deeply ashamed of how this country treats asylum seekers and refugees.

Since B, we’ve since hosted another ten refugees or so while they waited for more permanent and independent accommodation elsewhere. They’ve fled to the UK from Eritrea, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Congo, and Grenada. We’ve hosted men and women, Christians and Muslims, gay people and straight people, graduates and those with little formal education. But all of them have just wanted to work and to contribute to their new country. All of them have relied on the brilliant homelessness and refugee charities out there and none of them were helped by an official system that seems designed to break you rather than help you. To hear the rhetoric coming from the Labour government now on immigrants and asylum seekers is just heartbreaking.

We are not only wasting people’s lives and potential but also damaging our own humanity by demonising those seeking safety. The UK was not just an original signatory of the UN Refugee Convention, it also helped draft it. I want us to be that country again and live up to those noble responsibilities.

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Useful resources:

If you have a spare room and are interested in hosting please visit Refugees at Home.

Brilliant homelessness charities who also support refugees and asylum seekers include Shelter, Crisis and the YMCA.

Refugee charities whose brilliant work I’ve seen firsthand include Refugee Action, The Refugee Council, Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants, The Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network, and The Bike Project (please donate them any old bikes you have!).

The Refugee Council has some brilliant explainers on key facts on the asylum system in UK and refugees globally. Refugee Action also has great resources .

You can read more about who can currently access what ‘safe and legal routes’ to the UK exist from freemovement.org.uk.

PS. I was inspired to write this after reading Ian Dunt’s brilliant piece on immigrants more generally.