Where Has The Kindness Gone?

No sooner did the news break that asylum seekers were to be temporarily housed at the Palms Hotel on the A127 then the leader of the council Damien White and MPs Julia Lopez and Andrew Rosindell were on the front foot to shut this scheme down.

Asylum seekers are some of our most vulnerable members of society, having had to flee atrocities and persecution from their own country to try and start afresh in our fine land. We should be helping to welcome and care for these people and not starting petitions or lobbying the cabinet to chase them out of "our town".

As was reported by the Romford Recorder website on Monday the asylum seekers were going to be temporarily housed at the Hornchurch hotel to help curb the spread of coronavirus part of a nationwide programme to help reduce infections. It appears that in our fight to stop the spread of coronavirus we are happy to stroll to the end of our driveways to applaud the NHS and key workers, happy to stay locked up in our homes, but unwilling to help those most vulnerable members of our society - these people have now been simply moved on to become someone else's "problem".

The actions from our Conservative council leader and MPs are, in my opinion, at best NIMBYist and worst racist.

This post was written by Thomas Clarke Liberal Democrat GLA Candidate For Havering and Redbridge

Contact him by emailing thomas.clarke@haveringlibdems.org.uk or Tweet him @tpc1981