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BBC Question Time: Jess Phillips' Migration Crisis Plea Calls On Brits To 'Tighten Belts' To Help Refugees

Jess Phillips Makes Very British Plea To Help Give More Refugees A Home
George Bowden
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Jess Phillips has issued a passionate plea for sense on the UK's response to the refugee crisis, asking Brits to "tighten their belts" and "look at what they could offer".

The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley used her appearance on Thursday night's BBC 'Question Time' to evoke the imagery of British society during wartime, before arguing: "It is always the poorest people in this country who suffer the effects of migration."

Criticising the prime minister, she said: "I bet there aren't any living in Whitney in David Cameron's constituency".

Responding to those who believe Britain is already doing enough to help refugees, she said: "Of course we should take as many as we can. The way we can afford it is to look at our areas.

"I live in Birmingham and if Birmingham City Council takes a genuine look at what school places are available what housing is available looks wholesale at where we can fit in more and we all tightened our belts a bit and did it - we could take a certain number.

She issued a rallying cry to the country, saying: "I want everyone in every part of this country to look at what they could offer."

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Alibhai-Brown echoed Phillips sentiment and offered her own policy suggestion

Phillips continued: "There are four thousand children who have already settled in Italy and have gone missing and are expected to have been trafficked for sex.

"Imagine they were your children? We should take our share of the 26,000 children in Europe and in the UK that's 3,000."

Columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown echoed Phillips' sentiment by arguing that measures employed by countries to manage migrants could be compared to Nazi efforts during the Holocaust.

She said: "This week, we have seen the UK painting the doors of asylum seekers red, putting wristbands on them, and the worst of all, Denmark, suggesting they'll take the few precious bits they (refugees) manage to smuggle out."

Audience members were quick to interject on the subject, conveying their own experiences of the crisis.

One made the link between the much maligned tax receipt from Google and the apparent lack of resources available to bring more refugees to Britain.

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Thursday's 'Question Time' came from Stamford, Lincolnshire

Thursday’s edition included Labour's Jess Phillips, Conservative Transport Secretary Patrick McCloughlin, the SNP's Angus Robertson, columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and Conservative Party ad man Moray MacLennan.

Where UK Refugees Come From

Where UK refugees come from
Eritrea - 2,034 (10.5%)(01 of10)
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A 2015 UN report on Eritrea found widespread evidence of human rights violations in the country committed "under the authority of the government". Some of these could amount to crimes against humanity. Individuals are "routinely arbitrarily arrestedand detained, tortured, disappeared or extrajudicially executed".

Forced labour and national service are also enforced. Those singled out for persecution include anybody who does not belong to one of the four official religions - Roman Catholic Church, Eritrean Orthodox Church, Sunni Islam or the Eritrean Evangelical Church. All others are required to register and are not allowed to worship freely.

Democracy is absent with citizens unable to partake in free and fair elections in order to change their government. The UN security council recently convened to discuss continuing sanctions against the government who it deems to be supporting 'subversion' across the Horn of Africa. (credit:Getty)
Sudan - 1,736 (9%)(02 of10)
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Two million people are believed to have lost their lives due to civil war and famine in Sudan since 1983. Today, civilians face indiscriminate bombings and targeted attacks by government forces.

Power is solely in the hands of the authoritarian President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Christians in the country are persecuted as exemplified by the case last year of Maryam Yaḥyā Ibrahīm Isḥaq who was sentenced to death for leaving Islam and marrying her Christian husband.

Women also face female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), sexual violence, and trafficking.

Forty percent of children from five conflict-scarred Middle Eastern countries are not in school, the U.N. child welfare agency said in a report Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015, warning of a lost generation and a dim future for the region. UNICEF said 13.7 million out of 34 million school age children in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Sudan are not getting an education, almost double the number five years ago. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Pakistan - 1,700 (9%)(03 of10)
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Pakistan continues to face frequent gun and bomb attacks that have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people over the last decade as Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked groups hiding in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan battle government and international forces.

Just today (14 Oct) a bomb blast targeting a ruling party lawmaker killed seven people in the centre of the country.

More generally, Pakistanis face extrajudicial and targeted killings, disappearances, and a general lack of rule of law compounded by widespread corruption within the government and armed forces. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Iran - 1,353 (7%)(04 of10)
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Women, ethnic and religious minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons all face persecution in the majority Shia Muslim theocratic republic. The US State Department lists other human rights concerns including disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputation and flogging. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Syria - 1,314 (7%)(05 of10)
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Since the start of Syria's brutal civil war in 2012, up to 330,000 civilians have been killed and millions more displaced and forced to flee their homes.

The government of President Bashar Assad brutally crushed a popular uprising and has been battling western-backed rebels ever since. Incidences of chemical weapons attacks on civilian areas have occurred on a number of occasions. Regime-linked and paramilitary groups routinely carry out indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas, massacres and kidnappings. Last Thursday a car bomb killed at least 20 people in a crowded market place.

The entry of Russia - who support Assad - into the conflict and the presence if Islamic State in the country are signs the violence will only continue. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Afghanistan - 1,224 (6%)(06 of10)
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Afghanistan continues to be ravaged by sectarian violence as western-backed government forces fight a 14-year-long Taliban insurgency.

Afghan force were forced to repel the Taliban from Ghazni, just south of the capital, Kabul, raising fears of a revitalised insurgency in the face of the drawdown of Western forces.

There is endemic discrimination against women and girls. After seizing the northern Afghan city of Kunduz last month, Taliban fighters went door-to-door hunting for women's rights advocates and journalists.Afghanistan has the twelfth highest infant mortality rate (70 to every 1,000 live births) in the world, some three million drug users, and a literacy rate of 38.2%. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Albania - 996 (5%)(07 of10)
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Generally, Albanian asylum applicants in Europe are economic migrants fleeing a stagnant economy with few job prospects. Most are denied asylum and swiftly sent back. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Nigeria - 862 (4%)(08 of10)
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Nigeria is facing a sustained insurgency in the northeast of the country from the Islamist group Boko Haram. A recent report from Amnesty International states 1600 people have been killed by the group since June alone. Just today (14 Oct) seven people were killed in a triple bombing. 100,000 people have fled the country.

Boko Haram have also become notorious for mass kidnappings and the forced conscription of child soldiers. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Sri Lanka - 805 (4%)(09 of10)
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Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war culminated in 2009 with a huge offensive by government forces against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had been fighting for an independent Tamil state.

The group was crushed and many Tamil civilians were killed or displaced in the fighting. Since the civil war ended, those deemed by the state to be loyal to the LTTE have faced continued harassment and attacks. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Iraq - 744 (4%)(10 of10)
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The people of Iraq continue to face the destabilising and violent effects of the Islamic State who are battling rebel and government forces in large parts of the north of the country.

Frequent mass killings include the massacre of more than 600 inmates, almost all Shia, at Badoush prison near Mosul and 1,700 soldiers last year.

Reports of bombings and attacks on civilian areas are almost a daily occurrence. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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