Deputy: "Refugees are human beings in dire need"

Monday 21 September 2015

A Jersey politician who came to the Island with no money decades ago has taken a stand against misinformed views of immigrants and refugees - and he says that the Island should take on a small number of refugees.

Deputy Murray Norton - who says he’s disturbed by how insensitive and ignorant some locals have been about the crisis - has posted an "I am an Immigrant" mug shot on social media and is encouraging others who’ve made Jersey their home to show they are immigrants too.

Deputy Norton wasn’t born in the Island and neither was more than half the population and he says we shouldn’t fear refugees making Jersey their home.

“My Mother left India in 1947 where she was an orphan and she was taken in by a Sergeant Major in the British Army and brought back to the UK and given a life – from that you can derive where my sensitivities come from.

“I came here with no money. I came here and lived in a bedsit and hopefully in some way I have contributed to the Island in a very small way.

“I moved here because I wanted to but there are people in Syria who are moving because they want to too but their motivation is greater than mine. They are human beings, walking hundred of miles, not just out of protest. They are doing it out of absolute dire need.

In his posting on Facebook he says: "I did come to Jersey and no one protested, judged me by my colour, religion or which country I came from. Yet I have read posts from people I know well, saying those in desperate need right now are cowards for not staying in their country to be bombed, burned with chemicals, beheaded or raped. I ask you, would you stay there?"

Jersey is sending an extra £650,000 in aid to help the humanitarian crisis and to top up the £350,000 it granted in 2013 to help create emergency camps in countries around Syria. A fortnight ago Chief Minister Ian Gorst announced that the Island was also discussing taking in some refugees and giving them homes in Jersey.

Deputy Norton says he’s shocked that people are saying the Island couldn’t cope if we were to take in refugees. He said there could be families moving here from other parts of Europe in the coming weeks and that wouldn’t cause protests at the docks so there shouldn’t be people protesting to Jersey’s government stepping in to help with the crisis.

Deputy Norton said: “We’re only talking about eight people – that would be our quota compared to our population. Even it that were to happen it would come through the Home Office and it would come from the UK. We would be looking at taking people, like the UK, from refugee camps.

“There’s a perception that refugees are all helpless and we’ll have to fund them for the next ten years, that is very likely a very incorrect assumption. Most of these people will probably have run their own businesses somewhere.

“It’s about people getting completely the wrong end of the stick, we do have pressures in Jersey, but not on the same scale. There are people here looking for homes, jobs, by taxation but by relative terms Jersey is a very well off place and people need to put it in perspective.

“I don’t have the silver bullet to solve everyone’s problems, but I do hope it will make people think more sensitively, more compassionately and open up the ‘not in our back yard’ debate, we’ve been taking people in, in Jersey, throughout history and I think it’s wrong to turn our back on them. It’s morally wrong.”