Nadia Whittome calls for ‘complete overhaul’ of asylum system following meeting with LGBTQ+ refugee

Queer Labour MP, Nadia Whittome, has said that the UK’s asylum system needs a “complete overhaul” during a meeting with an LGBTQ+ refugee in parliament. The MP for Nottingham East met Memory, a lesbian refugee woman from Uganda, during Pride Month for a meeting in her parliamentary office.

Whittome, who described the current system as “cruel” said the the UK needs a “complete overhaul of the asylum and immigration system so that it’s more humane, more compassionate, gives people dignity”.

She added that the system needs to recognise “that what one person might call border control is actually violence. People being turned away, denied protection and sanctuary when they need it, families being broken up, people being forced into poverty while they’re waiting for their claims”.

The meeting between the two was organised by Women for Refugee Women (WRW), a charity based in London which supports refugee and asylum-seeking women, at which Memory is a ‘Rainbow Sister'.

Memory told Nadia Whittome: “People seeking safety like me are treated as numbers or as problems.”

Whittome responded: “There’s tendency for some MPs, perhaps those who aren’t embedded in their communities or social justice movements outside of Parliament, to see people as figures on a spreadsheet, rather than human beings who are no different from them or their families and who are just as deserving of dignity and respect.

“I think it’s really powerful when you come to Parliament and are so generous with your time to make MPs listen to what the real human stories are behind the headlines that they see that are too often very dehumanising.”

She continued: “The progress that we have, including in the UK, has been hard won and fought for and progress isn’t linear. We can’t just assume and take it for granted that it’s going to keep moving forwards.

“I think, seeing the really concerted global efforts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights reminds us that we have to keep fighting, because yeah, people are trying to take our rights away. And that fight, we’re not going to give up. We are not giving up.”