Britain doubles visas for Ukrainian refugees to 200,000 after outcry
The UK will double the number of Ukrainians eligible to come to Britain to 200,000 but is stopping short of mass resettlement “because it would give Putin a propaganda tool”.
Refugees will be able to come to the UK under a temporary relaxation of family reunion rules, which will be widened to allow people living in Britain to bring in parents, siblings, adult children and grandparents. This extends the visa concessions announced on Sunday, which was limited to children, spouses, civil partners and long-term partners.
Boris Johnson said it would increase the number of Ukrainians who qualified under the temporary visa concessions from 100,000 to 200,000, although in reality only a fraction of them would come. Speaking during a visit to Warsaw in Poland, the prime minister said it was “hard to calculate” how many Ukrainians would want to come.
Separately, a community sponsorship scheme will be started to enable companies, organisations and individual citizens to bring in Ukrainian refugees who have no ties in the UK.
However, a community sponsorship scheme that was launched in 2016 for Syrians has been slow to help refugees, with only 666 people resettled.
Mark Laing, chairman of Nairn’s Oatcakes in Edinburgh, has written to The Times saying his company would offer jobs to Ukrainian refugees.
The government has decided against a mass resettlement scheme like the one started amid the Afghanistan evacuation because of fears expressed by the Ukrainian government that it would appear defeatist, sources said.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, told a cabinet meeting on Monday that allowing visa-free travel would undermine the “express wishes” of the Ukrainian government. She said that Ukraine wanted people to return and remain invested in its future and that is why they expected most refugees to remain in neighbouring countries.
Another cabinet minister warned that making the policy too generous would be like “throwing in the towel”. A government source said: “There’s a danger that a narrative gets hold that ‘they’re all fleeing, they’re off to Berlin, Paris and London’. Putin would take advantage of this and put out the message that the Ukrainians are fleeing, they’re not putting up a fight. It would give Putin a propaganda tool, which is why the Ukrainian government is saying, ‘We need people to stay, and we need people armed with guns.’ ”
In the Commons yesterday, Patel said: “We are being told clearly that people want to stay in the region. It is a fact that what is happening in Ukraine right now, with the amazing and heroic resistance being shown, is that people are fighting for the freedom of their country, and family members and loved ones want to stay in the region.”
The UN’s refugee agency said that about 660,000 people had fled Ukraine for neighbouring countries in the first six days of the invasion and warned that it was set to become Europe’s “largest refugee crisis this century”.
The UK has provided an extra £80 million for the humanitarian relief effort, taking the total to £220 million. Downing Street said the extra money would be used on the border of Ukraine to provide assistance to refugees.
Opposition parties have also been briefed by the Ukrainian embassy, which warned that the images of millions of Ukrainians being permanently resettled across Europe would be an “admission of defeat”.
There are practical challenges: about 12,000 Afghans are still living in hotels more than six months after fleeing the Taliban. A minister said: “We can’t have a repeat of the Afghan situation, where thousands are still in hotels.”
Meetings have been scheduled with the Scottish government, which has expressed willingness to offer homes, Whitehall sources said. “Ideally we want any new refugees to move directly into homes because we have struggled persuading some Afghans to move out of hotels into more remote parts of Scotland, for example, because they are holding out hope for a more convenient location.”
