By Catherine Pepinster
Refugees must not be rejected and left to die, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged at a gathering in Westminster Abbey last night.
Just hours after Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, introduced wide-ranging reforms of the UK’s asylum system in the House of Commons, Filippo Grandi told an audience across the road of the obligation that nations have to those fleeing totalitarian regimes, war and persecution.
“Our commitment to solidarity dictates that people fleeing danger must not be turned back or left to die,” he said.
This obligation, he said, was being challenged as never before in an increasingly unstable world where people have lost trust in institutions. The debate over refugees had become politicised, he said, and “manipulated for electoral gains”.
“There is often more than a hint of xenophobia — if not outright racism — in the language used to describe refugees and asylum-seekers,” he said. Politicians under pressure made unacceptable choices, opting “to boil all policy options down to a false choice between chaos or control”.
Mr Grandi added: “It is important to avoid the temptation of the easy solution and acknowledge the complexity of the issue, and the real challenges that countries face in responding to forced displacement.”
He had been invited by Westminster Abbey to give its annual One People Oration, and in his speech, The Courage to Welcome: Solidarity in a Divided World, he related respect for refugees to religious traditions. “The principle of welcoming and protecting the stranger in need is as old as civilisation itself. It is a key element in cultures and sacred texts around the world.”
There have been times when this principle was rejected, he said, including during the Second World War, when some Jewish refugees were turned back and left to die. This and the large numbers of people on the move in Europe as communism spread after the war led to the 1951 Refugee Convention that defines refugees and their rights and outlines obligations of states to refugees.
Now, 74 years on from that convention, greater numbers than ever are being displaced — and the principles that once governed our treatment of refugees are being challenged. “As the memory of the horrors of the last century fades from historical consciousness, do we want to go back to 1939?” Mr Grandi asked.
The situation has become more complicated, Mr Grandi said, in a world where there are growing sources of information and climate change is also adding to the numbers of displaced people.
Most refugees, whether fleeing flooding or conflict, are not coming to Britain and Western Europe, he said, despite headlines about the numbers coming to the UK. The vast majority are moving to countries closer to their places of origin.
According to the Home Office, 111,084 people claimed asylum in the UK between July 2024 and June 2025. This includes 43,600 arrivals on small boats. This is a tiny fraction of the number of forcibly displaced people around the world — 117 million at the last count — a number that has doubled in the past decade.
Many of these people have been affected by war. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, there are 130 active conflicts around the world today. And while people in countries such as Britain often saw these people “with concern and apprehension”, for refugees, “the daily reality is one of terrifying fear”, Mr Grandi said. The situation had been made far worse by a growing disregard for international law that was supposed to ensure how wars were conducted. This has led to indiscriminate bombing of humanitarian convoys, hospitals and schools as has been witnessed in Gaza and Ukraine.
Mr Grandi acknowledged that the picture of people on the move was a complex one, with refugees travelling alongside migrants who are not fleeing for their lives but moving for economic reasons, such as escaping poverty. This was leading, he said, to problems for the destination countries — problems that include the way in which some migrants then lodge asylum claims. This led to a hardening of policies from politicians.
While politicians focus on people wanting to stay in countries to which they flee, most refugees want to return home, Mr Grandi said, adding: “Return is the preferred option of most refugees, contrary to the propaganda of some politicians who describe them all as simply eager to reach ‘our’ shores.”
He also pointed out the consequences of political choices, such as the cutting of international aid, affects what happens in countries that people flee from; and the blocking of legal channels to achieve asylum leads to people crossing the Channel on small boats.
Mr Grandi instead called on countries to work together to meet their obligations under the Refugee Convention. He called on them to consider easing restrictions on refugees such as more freedom of movement and being able to work, which would make them more self-reliant and less dependent on aid.
“If we avoid the temptation of simplistic responses — barriers, pushbacks, constraints — we can find the needed balance and uphold a fundamental value of all civilisations.”
