Our leaders need to find the courage to stand up for refugees

Marking World Refugee Day today (20 June) should be an occasion to celebrate the strength and courage of people forced to flee conflict and persecution and a reminder of our shared duty to provide sanctuary.

But sadly, the resilience of refugees – many of whom have escaped war or torture and endured terror or exploitation including on their dangerous journeys seeking safety – is not matched by those who are or aspire to be in positions of leadership. This urgently needs to change.

In the UK, refugees are facing hostility on a range of fronts, from the issues that dominated the Makerfield by-election, to the racist destruction that raged through the streets of Belfast and Glasgow, to the Government’s own official policies that separate them from family or simply refuse sanctuary, and political agitation from the likes of Elon Musk.

On the one hand, the Government has condemned those who stir hate and violence, while on the other, its policies and rhetoric increase the insecurity of refugees and other migrants while endorsing prejudices that scapegoat them for the wide-range of social problems and hardships caused by the cost-of-living crisis, housing shortages and more.

Political leaders across the spectrum are failing to show the strength and courage necessary.

As the UN’s refugee agency’s latest global report on 2025 confirms, the right to asylum is under increasing threat in many parts of the world.

Large populations of Afghans, Congolese, Syrians and Sudanese are being forced to return to insecurity, violence and humanitarian crisis from countries that border conflict and oppression. While these are the countries that have long hosted more than two-thirds of the world’s refugee population, their will to continue taking such disproportionate responsibility is on the decline.

Further afield, many far wealthier countries have become increasingly hostile to people seeking asylum in their territories. This is despite these countries – apart from Germany – already hosting fewer refugees than those closer to the persecution from which refugees flee.

These are bleak and dangerous times. Both for the people targeted by far right and racist violence in the UK – including families and children burnt out of their homes – and also more widely.

The reality: oppression and war continue to engulf large parts of the world. Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Palestinian lands, conflict in Sudan and in South Sudan, Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and the spread of insurgencies across Africa’s Sahel continue to rage.

Even though people’s need for asylum is clear, its availability is declining – particularly in those parts of the world that have for too long been asked to take the lion’s share of responsibility for providing it.

More people are being forced back to the dangerous, unstable places they had to flee. But since refugees are resilient, resourceful and courageous, many will make longer journeys from which organised smuggling gangs and others will profit.

The UK and its European neighbours may prefer to see fewer people seeking asylum, but the more their actions encourage countries like Iran, Pakistan or Turkey to renege on their responsibilities, the more people will be forced to seek safety increasingly far from home.

Answers lie in strengthening resolve to guarantee the right to asylum rather than undermining it. All countries must cooperate by making their own contribution to hosting refugees, and those with greater resource and capacity cannot simply continue attempting to abdicate that responsibility in the hope or expectation that someone else covers for them.

The tragedy here is that politicians are delivering precisely the opposite of what they promise. By ratcheting up their hostility to refugees, they are creating a world that is even less safe and in which more people will make dangerous journeys, such as in small boats, backs of lorries or shipping containers to cross the Channel.

The UK and its government are in the midst of something of a political crisis with immigration repeatedly highlighted as a lead issue of concern.

This will be the case unless there is a radical change of purpose and conviction at the heart of Government.

More attempts at appeasing hate and scapegoating refugees and migrants will not defeat or outmanoeuvre those prepared to call for ever greater extremes. Nor can they satisfy the aspirations or attitudes of those encouraged to blame migrants for the social deprivation and injustice that the rich and powerful have failed and refused to correct.

Whoever is Prime Minister and whoever is Home Secretary, it is vital they find the fortitude to stand up for refugees and our obligation to provide sanctuary.