John Sentamu said Schengen countries should take responsibility for Calais refugee camp and ‘resolve the problem’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The archbishop of York has accused European countries of pushing migrants towards Britain and warned that the UK should not be regarded as a “soft touch”.

John Sentamu said the refugee camp in Calais only existed because the Schengen free-travel zone allowed migrants to move from the Middle East or Africa through Europe to the edge of the Channel without passport checks.

The Church of England’s second-highest cleric told the Henley literary festival that the countries in the Schengen area should “own up to what they have created”.

“I think it should be that, wherever the asylum seekers arrive in that particular place, you have a responsibility for their care, their love,” the Daily Mail reported him saying.



“Schengen countries have not done that with the ‘Jungle’ and I, for one – as much as I am sympathetic and I feel sorry for the number of people genuinely seeking asylum – I think really the issue lies with the Schengen countries and they cannot see Britain as a soft touch.”

Sentamu, who fled Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda in 1973 for the UK, visited the Calais camp in June.

He said the UK could not be held responsible for the camp because it had never been part of the visa-free zone.

“They have gone from nation to nation which signed up in Europe,” Sentamu told the festival audience. “Those Schengen countries ought to resolve the problem that belongs there because they have entered Europe because of free movement.

“Every nation is shunting them and shunting them and shunting them in the hope that they will end up in the UK.”

On Monday François Hollande called on the UK to accept some responsibility for solving the refugee problem in Calais and across Europe.

The French president said he wanted the camp, which is home to an estimated 10,000 people including 1,000 lone children – to be “completely and definitively dismantled”.

Closing down the camp would be an “exceptional operation prompted by exceptional circumstances”, Hollande added.

The archbishop praised David Cameron’s policy of giving aid to Middle Eastern nations to help refugees stay in their home countries.

In comments that could spark criticism from refugee groups, Sentamu said that Britain should begin naval patrols of the Libyan coast to prevent people smuggling.

“What I never understood is, given the ability and the number of British ships we’ve got, why aren’t they patrolling the coast around Libya to stop people getting into boats?” he asked.