Pete Wishart

When I saw the motion on the Order Paper, I had to look twice as I was absolutely certain that it must be a Reform motion, but then I remembered that they do not get Opposition days. The motion is indeed in the name of the Conservative party. For all this “I will never work with Nigel Farage” and so on that we hear from the Conservative leadership, they are now literally indistinguishable from Reform, with their antipathy towards asylum seekers, immigration and human rights now defining these new “Reformatives”. The Conservatives are responsible for the crisis that we are currently confronting in the asylum system, having created huge, outstanding backlogs from their time in office that required the use of facilities such as those at Bicester. I know very little about the situation in Bicester, so I am not going to comment on the particularities, but when the Government are dealing with asylum seekers, they are absolutely right to try to ensure that there is equity across the whole of the United Kingdom, so that towns and cities like those in my constituency are not left to accommodate the masses of asylum seekers that we currently have. It is right that every constituency must play its part in trying to clear up the mess that was bequeathed by the Conservatives. The last place where this “not in my backyard” principle should apply is when we are dealing with real people’s lives. There is blanket opposition to accommodation for asylum seekers right across the United Kingdom, and that has been created by the culture, climate and the language that is used just now when we come to describe asylum seekers. Some of the language that I have heard from Members on the Conservative Front Bench and in some of the contributions by Conservative Members is simply appalling: demonising, othering and trying to present whole communities as deviants—sexual deviancy and the rest. I find that absolutely unacceptable. It is no wonder that communities are really upset about the prospect of people coming into their constituencies.