Closing the Jungle
Around 7,000 people were evicted from the “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais this week, as French demolition crews moved in. They pulled down shacks by hand and used diggers to remove debris from the site. Buses distributed the inhabitants to reception centres across France, where their asylum claims will be examined. The three-day operation to clear the camp was officially completed on Wednesday.
Unaccompanied children were allowed to stay in Calais while their cases were assessed. Around 200 have been brought to Britain over the past fortnight, and about 600 more are expected to follow. Critics complained that some of the new arrivals looked older than 18, and called for dental checks to verify their age. Under EU asylum law, the UK must take lone children who have family here. But we’re also accepting other youngsters under the Dubs amendment – named after Labour peer Lord Dubs, who introduced the measure in order to help the most vulnerable child refugees.
What the editorials said
At the London Olympics four years ago, Britain “proudly projected the image of an open, tolerant, confident nation”, said The Observer. But how mean-spirited we have made ourselves look today. MPS calling for asylum seekers to be subjected to dental checks? Tabloids using an inaccurate “fun app” to analyse photos of arriving child refugees in order to “prove” that they are adults and therefore don’t deserve our help? “What has happened to us?”
The liberal “posturing” over the questioning of migrants’ ages has been ridiculous, said the Daily Mail. Gary Lineker condemned critics’ concerns as “hideously racist”; shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said it made her “ashamed to be British”. Never mind that “every other country in the EU, bar three, uses dental and carpal X-rays to ascertain migrants’ ages”, or the fact that Britain has given more aid than any other EU nation to help Syrian refugees in camps in the Middle East. The concern over migrants’ ages is legitimate, agreed The Daily Telegraph. “The British people want to see children who need asylum helped to settle in the UK.” But they also want the asylum system to have integrity.