Dear Friends and Colleagues,

My occasional letters to MPs and government ministers often provoke a reply which makes highly dubious claims, including that ‘the UK settles more refugees than any other European country’.  Lots of these claims appear in right-wing tabloids and even supposedly reputable newspapers – so loads of people actually believe them.

But take a look at this set of data about asylum in this country, drawn from UNHCR and the Migration Observatory at Oxford University – two highly reliable sources. I am posting this so that you can test what you hear about this subject from people who are less interested in the truth than they should be or simply do not know the truth.  

Please feel free to do nothing with this information or maybe just have it to hand so that you can include bits of it in conversations you may find yourself having about refugees, asylum and immigration. I hope it will at least strengthen your conviction about what we all in Sanctuary in Chichester are trying to put right, and give you confidence in the rightness of your support and help for refugees and asylum seekers.

Kind regards
Roger Pask
Founder and Trustee, Sanctuary in Chichester