The UK’s deputy prime minister has suggested Ukrainians would prefer to flee to countries nearer to home amid criticism that the Britain’s support for refugees is “heartless” and pressure to offer more help from Conservative MPs.
Under plans set out on Sunday evening, Ukrainian nationals settled in the UK will be able to bring their “immediate family members” to join them, which applies only to spouses, unmarried partners of at least two years, parents or their children if one is under 18, or adult relatives who are also carers.
In contrast, the European Union is preparing to grant all Ukrainians who flee the war the right to stay and work in the 27-nation bloc for up to three years, senior officials said on Monday.
Asked why the UK was not matching the EU’s offer, Raab told Sky News: “In relation to the Europeans, of course they’re closer to Ukraine and as the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK said over the weekend it will often be the case that … most Ukrainians will want to stay in Ukraine, but if they leave they’ll want to be as close to their home country as possible in order to be able to come back in the future.”
Raab said the UK scheme would allow up to 100,000 Ukrainians to come, adding: “I think that’s the right way to approach.”
Speaking in Poland on Tuesday morning, Boris Johnson told his Polish counterpart he would work with the country to take refugees, but gave no further details of whether he was prepared to offer a wider resettlement scheme.
“We stand ready clearly to take Ukrainian refugees in our own country, working with you, in considerable numbers as we always have done and always will,” the prime minister said.
Johnson described Vladimir Putin’s tactics as “barbaric and indiscriminate”, saying the Russian president was prepared to “bomb tower blocks, to send missiles into tower blocks, to kill children, as we are seeing in increasing numbers”.
On Monday, the prime minister was sent a letter from members of the One Nation Conservatives group, led by the former Home Office minister Damian Green, criticising the UK’s response and also signed by the former ministers Jeremy Hunt, Caroline Nokes and Sir Robert Buckland.
“We need sincere and immediate support for the Ukrainian people. The United Kingdom cannot flag or fail, our message must be clear: Ukrainian victims of war seeking refuge are welcome,” the letter says.
The One Nation caucus, which is often seen as a centrist grouping in the party, has about 40 members.
The shadow home secretary, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, also said the government needed to do more to help Ukrainians fleeing war and seeking to rejoin friends and family in the UK.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “At the moment, what the Home Office is doing is trying to just tweak the existing system. They’re trying to carry on with a version of business as usual, with a version of asking people to apply for traditional work visas or traditional visitor visas or traditional family visas that are still narrowly drawn.
“And the normal system just doesn’t work when you are facing war in Europe, when you’re facing a crisis on this scale.
“We need to be fast and flexible – that is what other countries have done in different ways and that is what we can do as well, what we have always done in the past, and I think it’s what people across the country want to do.”
Cooper added the Home Office “has simply not done the preparation”, despite weeks of warnings of a Russian invasion in Ukraine and the resulting refugee crisis.
Raab warned that Putin could respond to resistance in Ukraine with “even more barbaric tactics”.
He told Sky News: “We know that Putin will react to this, or we fear that he will react to this, with even more barbaric tactics, that’s why we must be prepared that this could be a long haul.”
The former foreign secretary added: “This is turning into a much, much more perilous misadventure for Putin than I think he realised and it has a demoralising effect on Russian forces and it has had the effect of steeling the will of the Ukrainian people.
“That’s how we will ensure Putin fails in Ukraine and we’re there for the long haul.”
