Nicola Sturgeon: Scotland ready to take in refugees

Support for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-independence Scottish National Party has surged in the wake of the referendum defeat, and the poll suggested the SNP is set to increase its majority in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in elections in May next year.

Ms White also highlighted the launch of a new volunteer-led organisation – Scotland Supporting Refugees – which is raising awareness about the refugee crisis in Europe, campaigning for action and raising funds to support humanitarian relief.

The First Minister said: “It has been suggested we in Scotland should ready ourselves to accept 1,000 refugees – I believe we should do so not as a cap or a limit, but as a starting point for a meaningful discussion about how much we can practically contribute”.

That wee boy – named as three-year-old Alyan Kurdi – has touched our hearts, but his is not an isolated tragedy.

Ms Sturgeon said she wants to “work constructively” with the United Kingdom government and welcomed the Prime Minister’s pledge for further support today but called for more detail on the plans.

“The taskforce will have a hugely important role in harnessing the many, many expressions of goodwill and
offers of help from the public in Scotland, providing a focal
point and ensuring that the
wider Scottish community can play its part in welcoming
people to our country”.

She added: This is not an immigration issue, it’s a humanitarian one, and the human response must be to help.

“It is that proud history of compassion and leadership, as well as our human despair at the images we see daily on our TV screens, that makes it, in my view, so desperately dispiriting to see the UK Government struggle to show leadership in this refugee crisis”.

“We are a wealthy country with considerable resources; this can not be our response to a conflict where four million people have been forced to flee”. “‘He and thousands like him whose lives are at risk is not somebody else’s responsibility, they are the responsibility of us all”.

“Failing to act would be a betrayal of our history and our global obligations”.

“I pledge as first minister of this country that we stand ready to offer sanctuary to refugees that need our help”.

Thousands of people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to Europe so far this year, and yet the UK Government remains unwilling to welcome any more people from Syria and other war torn nations.

The SNP leader has written a letter to David Cameron calling on the government to increase the number of refugees taken in by the UK.

However, until David Cameron reconsiders the current response of the UK Government, there is a limit to what we in Scotland are able to do.

Her voice cracking with emotion, Ms Sturgeon told MSPs that the UK Government’s response had been “utterly shameful”.