Our changing attitude to taking in refugees is a devastating indictment on the loss of our humanity

To be human is to care for other humans

What are we becoming?

Seriously. What kind of people are we becoming when our desire to help refugees—refugees!!—is dramatically decreasing?

Let’s take a look at what a refugee is:

Refugee: “a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster”.

Over the last year, the number of people who think we should be taking in more refugees has gone down from 28 percent to just 8 percent.

More than 63 percent of us now think we should take in fewer refugees.

Refugees, lest we’ve already forgotten, are those who have been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with immigration.

This is about being human. This is about giving a shit about people’s lives that have been devastated by circumstances beyond their control.

Though we have our challenges, the UK is a rich nation. We can afford to take in more refugees.

But, frankly, even if we couldn’t afford to, we should still take them.

They’re refugees!!!

So, I ask again: what are we becoming?

When we cease to care about the neediest people on the planet, are we still even truly human? Or have we lowered ourselves to mere animals, thinking only of ourselves?

To be human is to care for other humans.

Are we still human?