The public cares more about refugees than Westminster wants to believe

In the 1930s and 1940s, countries turned away people fleeing violence and persecution, with devastating consequences. After the Second World War, Britain helped build a shared legal framework to ensure that people forced to flee could seek safety and rebuild their lives. We were not merely a signatory, but one of its key architects.

That framework remains a source of national pride. But its 75th anniversary, which fell in July, arrived at a moment of profound danger. Wars in Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine and Afghanistan are forcing families from their homes, while conflicts are lasting longer and becoming harder to resolve. I recently returned from Sudan, where that reality was impossible to ignore: women fleeing sexual violence used as a weapon of war, parents watching severely malnourished children slip away, and communities struggling to rebuild devastated health systems and farmland. At precisely this moment, humanitarian funding and resettlement places are shrinking.

Governments have long assumed the British public no longer cares about people fleeing conflict overseas. But new YouGov polling suggests otherwise. 59% of Britons say too much attention is paid to how refugees arrive and not enough to why they come. In comparison, more than 75% say it is important to distinguish refugees from wider migration debates. Almost two thirds – 63% - are sympathetic towards those forced to flee. The generosity shown by families who opened their homes to Ukrainians reminds us that compassion has not disappeared. People want control and competence. This means solutions that work, not rhetoric that confuses.

Recent developments in Ceuta, alongside Reform UK’s increasingly militarised rhetoric on Channel crossings, underline the risks of reducing a complex humanitarian challenge to displays of toughness. Against today’s backdrop of ‘migration flashpoints’, the UK Government faces a concrete test. Success will not come from making the system crueller – an approach that has produced backlogs, spiralling costs, and declining trust. It will come from a fast, fair, and effective asylum system, an ambitious vision for safe routes, international cooperation, and action against people smugglers.

Success means helping refugees establish their lives and contribute to their communities. That requires secure status, a dedicated refugee family reunion route, targeted English language tuition and employment support within a national integration strategy. I have recently spent time with Afghan families supported by the International Rescue Committee in the UK to improve their English, find jobs and build new lives. Their ambition is not to remain on the margins, but to work, provide for their families and contribute to the places they now call home.

The Government's Social Cohesion plan, published this year to strengthen the bonds between communities across Britain, rightly recognises that inclusion cannot be built on uncertainty. Which is why it must be matched with faster access to settled status and the right to work for refugees, not longer waits that leave people stuck on the margins.

The international evidence is equally clear. Giving refugees the chance to work and put down roots benefits host countries too: early access to the labour market for Ukrainians in Poland has supported economic growth. At the same time, Colombia’s ten-year protection for Venezuelans has generated substantial additional tax revenue. Integration is practical policy, not simply a gesture of welcome.

Britain must choose leadership over retreat. More than two-thirds of refugees are hosted by lower- and middle-income countries. Wealthier states cannot let aid and resettlement commitments lapse while expecting countries with far fewer resources to shoulder responsibility. Britain should protect its humanitarian commitments and expand safe routes.

Abandoning the Convention’s promise would not solve today’s political pressures; it would remove the only shared framework we have for managing them. Britain helped write these rules because it understood what happens when countries turn away from those people facing the unimaginable. The question, 75 years on, is whether we still have the confidence to uphold them in a more uncertain world – and the leadership to shape their next 75 years.

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Flora Alexander is the Executive Director at the International Rescue Committee UK, as well as a Trustee at the Disasters Emergency Committee and Public Law Project. She has 20+ years' experience spanning the multilateral system, INGOs, public and private sectors, advancing social impact and human rights.

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