Brian Bilston’s ‘Refugee’ Poem

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or I
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(Now read from bottom to top)
@brian_bilston

We have a moral and legal obligation to help refugees: Jane Carolan full #TUC15 speech

“We have a moral and legal obligation to help refugees”, UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan told delegates today in a moving speech backing a statement committing the General Council to campaign for Government policy to:
- recognise that the UK must play a full role in supporting refugees and fulfil its moral and legal obligations to significantly upscale its resettlement programme
- participate fully in a continent-wide response to the refugee crisis
- make welcome tens of thousands of refugees whether from camps in the Middle East or already in Europe
- .fully fund refugee resettlement, avoiding the exploitation of refugees and avoiding extra pressure on poorer inner-city communities, whilst ensuring that the international development budget is only used in line with OECD guidelines on official development assistance.

"Jane’s full speech is below.

This motion refers to events that everyone in this hall must be aware of, from the images that have been beamed into our homes on a nightly basis. I would hope that no one in this hall watches them with anything other than compassion and pity.

Solidarity with the Palestinians of Yarmouk

Christopher Gunness, spokesman for UNRWA (the UN relief effort for refugees) wrote in yesterday's Observer about more than 20,000 Palestinians trapped in Yarmouk, a refugee camp in Syria. In the midst of the Syrian civil war the refugees are enduring appalling conditions which Gunness rightly says ought to concern all of us and calls for humanitarian aid to be stepped up . UNISON branches can donate via Human Aid.