Will you sign up to the new refugee sponsorship scheme?

[JoyousOpalLemur]

The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is apparently announcing next week a new refugee sponsorship scheme.

It would allow households to privately sponsor refugees from conflict zones.

Applications open this autumn, with the aim of resettling more than 10,000 people.

It’s modelled on Canada’s scheme and the Homes for Ukraine programme.

Sponsors would commit to providing financial, emotional and practical support.

What do people think? I just can't help thinking that with the current pressures on housing, schools, GPs and local services, how this will actually work in practice? Has anyone been involved in the Ukraine sponsorship scheme and can share what it was really like day-to-day?

Curious to hear everyone’s views.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/home-secretary-announce-scheme-refugees-uk-lgdr8ff25

So the general public then? Because that's who funds charities.

Especially as these are the same posters who have been vehemently telling us off for pointing out they’re all men that we take issue with. 🙄 And telling us we should let them in with no checks as they’re all doctors (reiterated by someone upthread). So many doctors working cash in hand in car washes… if it was true it would be a national scandal.

It's not stopping other people from doing so, it's expecting other people to do so.

Help refugees!!

Okay, what are you doing to help?

Well I'm posting on SM saying I support them and get angry with people who say they think there might be some problems.

Okay but here's an opportunity where you can really help.

Well I can't because X, Y or Z but everyone else should be doing that! And not saying there might be problems because I believe we should help refugees! Except I can't so ..

Leave the UDHR

Yep

That sounds like a very difficult thing to live with and to be so unsupported is crazy.
What happened in the end? I assume she is no longer at yours.

My old neighbours who took in the lady and her daughter found out that they had been actually living in Italy when the war started so weren't in any danger and had just decided to take advantage of the fact that someone would be funding their living.

Has it worked well in Canada?

Yes exactly! It’s hypocritical. And yet they are tying themselves up in knots to tell us that no one should feel obliged. I beg to differ. People should be willing to put their money where their mouth is or stop frustrating the system that is designed to protect them from bad actors. I wonder how many of those people that literally stop planes deporting foreign criminals would actually host a foreign criminal instead of just waving a monocause “refugees welcome” sign.

This is being forced on the UK whether the people like it or not.

Fucking hell. You know the declaration of human rights was brought in after WW2 to try to stop the atrocities of that war from ever happening again?
And you'd bin it?

So it only really works if a large amount of resources are directed towards it by govt or local authorities. In other words, taking resources from other cash-strapped services. Less for people here already, people on housing waiting lists, people who can't get a dental appointment etc etc.

That's all fine and dandy if you're well off. Not so great if you're one of the people waiting for housing, looking for a dentist etc.

Without reading too much into this policy, I wonder if it's intended to replace the currently suspended family reunion route into the country, whereby the young men arrive solo, present to councils as homeless then send for their families to join them so they are entitled to better housing etc. That's been the done thing for years now, only recently stopped and perhaps this new scheme isn't aimed at British citizens but migrants who arrive first before bringing their families over via nore proper routes?

I’ve just finished reading this, really enjoyed it!

So potentially a giant ponzi scheme.

I mistakenly thought it meant the refugee convention. We should leave that.

Agree 100%, trouble is the 'refugees welcome' brigade never think about all the people in the UK who are struggling and who aren't well off. Those people are just not on their radar.

One poster said that.

One. Among hundreds of posts.

Everyone else is saying surely there are numerous problems?

There aren't any schemes suggesting you should house homeless people or single mothers but if there was, it would still be fine for people to call you out on your refusal to do it yourself while at the same time expecting someone else to do it.

Because that's what you do when you say you support refugees at the same time as saying you wouldn't actually offer support.

You're expecting someone else to do it. Whether it be individuals or the government. You're saying I care but this isn't my problem but when other people say well there are a lot of problems with it you say stop hating refugees, stop being racist.

You're full of virtue signalling.

And here you've been given the opportunity to actually DO something but no, you can't or won't.

So you'll have to accept that your SM posts do nothing but make you feel good and don't actually help any refugees in any way.

And turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by those refugees

Can’t help but smirk at the virtue-signallers who’ve been busted by this scheme.

Illegal migration is ruining people’s lives - those people are poor, British and probably disabled or black. They still count, you shameful bunch.

At the end of the day I could rent out my spare room for £1,500 a month. Or I could accept a refugee and be out of pocket. Why would I do that when I could pay tax on the £1,500 a month income that goes towards housing them elsewhere?

Anyway I’m not particularly bothered anymore. I just want the economy to improve and crime to go down and my kids to grow up in a prospering nation.

The post by @apeaceful2026 above, who clearly had a very stressful experience, does sum up why ideas of ‘Big Society’ philanthropy just don’t work without proper, publicly funded services.

The host had the generosity, the space and the willingness but without an array of decent wrap-around services, such as translation or social and cultural support, the Ukranian guests’ needs were far beyond what she could provide.

No harm in moving somewhere else if you can support yourself and not expect the locals to have to do it!

There was a request for this to be available from people in the U.K. who had relatives in Afghanistan, during that resettlement. Or more so the question why it couldn’t apply to those when it applied to Ukrainians.

I think there’s potential in this tbh but it will take some setting up and monitoring.

I’m more interested in the other stuff - as I’m a bit confused as to the new Family route being restricted to parents, spouses, u-18, unless exceptional - as this has always been the case.

Also MS protections removed for those committing crimes had always been looked at but there is the possibility the crime was committed due to the MS and so should be discounted or at least reviewed rigorously. We do have some of the worst MS leave btw for those who don’t like it.

I am a leftie, I disliked Labour’s immigration rhetoric/new rules but what I have always advocated is honesty from any government on the facts around immigration - I really dislike all governments of all shades obfuscation of the immigration position and rules - this doesn’t look much different to me sadly.

Hell no. I would help a report-an-illegal-for-a-bounty scheme.

Absolutely not