Skip to main content
Advertise with the Morning Star
The dreadful treatment of refugees must end
The Ukraine conflict highlights a systemic problem with Britain’s response to refugees, caused by a system which is not fit for purpose, says DIANE ABBOTT MP
People fleeing from Ukraine queue to board on a bus at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Friday March 4

WHEN serious international conflict breaks out, it is quite customary to hear widespread calls for peace and fair treatment of refugees. 

However, we have grown used to these calls being widely ignored over the last three decades of wars. That has certainly been the case in just the earliest days of the Ukraine crisis.

In fact one of the worst aspects has been the response to the refugee crisis. This has numerous features. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform party leader Nigel Farage takes part in media interviews after holding a news conference in central London, August 4, 2025
Features / 23 August 2025
23 August 2025

Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP

People during a Stand Up To Racism protest near the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, London where asylum seekers are planned to be housed, July 25, 2025
Features / 9 August 2025
9 August 2025

DIANE ABBOTT explodes the anti-migrant myths perpetrated by cynical politicians and an irresponsible mass media

Traji Adwan (centre) mourns during the funeral of her 11-year-old grandchild Qais, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza that has been used as a shelter, at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, July 25, 2025
Features / 26 July 2025
26 July 2025

Our Foreign Secretary now condemns Israel in the Commons, yet Britain still supplies weapons and intelligence for its bombing campaigns — as the horror reaches perhaps the final stage, action must finally replace words, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP

cuts and war
Features / 12 July 2025
12 July 2025

The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP

Similar stories
People during a Stand Up To Racism protest near the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, London where asylum seekers are planned to be housed, July 25, 2025
Features / 9 August 2025
9 August 2025

DIANE ABBOTT explodes the anti-migrant myths perpetrated by cynical politicians and an irresponsible mass media

Lord Alf Dubs on stage addressing the crowd during a rally in Parliament Square, London, after taking part in the Refugees Welcome March, September 2016
Features / 6 May 2025
6 May 2025

A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum

Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking at a press conference w
Features / 22 February 2025
22 February 2025
Dangerous and delusional military posturing on the world stage does not serve the interests of the public among the European powers, nor the people of Ukraine, writes DIANE ABBOTT
A view of HMP Northeye in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, March
Britain / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
MPs condemn Home Office after it wasted £15.4m on derelict prison to house asylum seekers