Saturday, January 04, 2020

Something postive to do

At the end of previous years on the blog I have given a New Year round-up, sometimes with highlights of the year, or highs and lows, or bests and worsts. This year I couldn't face it. I had looked back on the 2019 posts and been shocked as to how much wailing I'd done about the Tories and the results of their cruel and unnecessary austerity policies and their hostile attitude to refugees and asylum seekers.

I clearly stated 10 years ago that this wasn't a political blog - and I meant it, too, with the exception of posts about Palestine - but I just couldn't keep my feelings about politics off the blog last year. So the troll who surfaced in the comments section in December, could, I suppose, be forgiven for thinking this was the place for political debate. Long-time readers know it's more a place of the day-to-day at Hepworth Towers, the ups and downs in my writing, musings about this and that and not very much, and photographs of the Monsal Trail, my garden and my grandchildren. And let's not forget the annual jam-fest.

There's been a lot of despondency at Hepworth Towers since December 13th, and yesterday evening Dave said 'Do you think we'll ever be able to watch the news again?'

But I want to draw your attention to this bit of news in the hope you will help: it's concerning child refugees.

Right now, the Government is preparing to scrap a scheme which gives child refugees the right to be reunited with family members in the UK. The new Brexit withdrawal legislation has dropped the UK's agreement to honour the arrangements about this that already exist.

But there is an amendment to this legislation coming up in Parliament in the next couple of weeks to ensure that child refugees with family members in the UK can still have the right to be reunited with them. 

Please will you sign the petition here, and also write to your MP to ask them to support the amendment. The petition website gives you a specimen email that you can use. 

Please help.








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