Patrick Christys: We have a duty to take in Afghan refugees

The big question of the day is how many Afghan refugees should Britain accept?

Boris Johnson is reportedly willing to take 20,000 over the next five years – but is that enough, is that too many? Do we have a duty to the Afghan population?

I believe we do, but one thing is for sure - now more than ever we need to get a grip on what’s happening in the Channel. We can’t continue to have record numbers of people arriving in dinghies every day AND accommodate thousands of Afghans.

If Priti Patel was looking for an excuse to finally get tough in the Channel this is it. And nobody can have a problem with that – the main argument against bothering to protect our own borders is that Britain should take its fair share of refugees, it should be a kind and welcoming country and that we have the room for them.

Well, yesterday, the co-founder of the Taliban rolled back into Kandahar to a hero’s welcome. Right now there are thousands of Afghan interpreters with potentially just days to live, there is footage of women protesting about their rights in Kabul surrounded by armed Taliban fighters - are they still alive this morning?

A child was shot in the head at the capital’s airport.

There is now no shortage of people who deserve asylum in this country, and instead of them crossing mainland Europe and fleeing the famously war-torn nation of France to cross the Channel, we have to go and get them ourselves from an actual war-torn country run by a cabal of murderous, depraved, tinpot jihadis.

We don’t always know who’s coming over the Channel, we don’t know where they’re from, we don’t know if they’re genuine refugees. We do know, for the most part, who the people fleeing the Taliban are, we do know where they came from, and we do know that they’re genuine refugees. Closing the migrant route in the Channel and opening a new corridor with Afghanistan is safer, more practical and, crucially, the morally right thing to do.

We have to face up to the fact that we made a huge deal of going into Afghanistan alongside America. It was Tony and George against the world.

Well, what that now means is that it’s Britain and America who have to bear the brunt of the humanitarian crisis and that means taking more refugees than anyone apart from the United States.

If you don’t like that, then blame Blair – you can add it to the list of Tony’s Greatest Hits.

‘If continuing to allow record numbers of undocumented migrants crossing the channel means we can’t provide accommodation and ongoing support for the people of Afghanistan, then it becomes absolute, total lunacy’

Patrick Christys says ‘we have a duty to take in Afghan refugees’ pic.twitter.com/Oz9fMv2Lv7

— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 18, 2021

There are lots of reasons why our current soft touch approach in the Channel is wrong, but if continuing to allow record numbers of undocumented arrivals means that we can’t provide accommodation, refuge, and ongoing support for the people of Afghanistan, then it becomes absolute, total lunacy.

I’ll finish how I started, I think we have a duty to take in Afghan refugees.