By Lesley Carty of South East Cornwall Labour Party

Imagine what it would be like if a giant storm swept through Cornwall, destroying bridges, causing landslides and floods and sweeping away houses… or if a multinational company started forcibly – and legally – removing thousands of Cornish residents from their homes in order to extract some new mineral wealth they had discovered. Then imagine violence breaking out as a result, so it was no longer safe to live here. Where would you go? And what would you do if, when you arrived there, you were turned away?
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 82.4 million forcibly displaced people fleeing from wars, violence, human rights violations and natural disasters in 2020. The vast majority of refugees end up in camps in their own or neighbouring countries, in Africa, the Middle East and South America. Yet the British government’s proposed New Plan for Immigration threatens to punish the tiny proportion who come seeking sanctuary in the UK. Instead, why aren’t we asking ourselves why so many desperate people need to flee their homes in the first place?
We live in an interconnected and interdependent world. Our addiction to fast fashion and disposable plastic means that, thousands of miles away, rivers are polluted by manufacturing, and waste ends up choking coastlines and waterways. Our consumption of cheap timber means forest communities can find themselves evicted; our mobile phones and laptops depend on minerals from places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a statement from the Catholic Bishops states: “The ultimate agenda is to depopulate the countryside so that multinational prospectors can have free access.”
Not only are there direct connections between the mass destruction of natural habitats, conflict, and forced displacement; making the goods we consume also requires energy – and carbon emissions – which leads to more destructive weather events, which creates refugees.
Of course, to really tackle the linked crises of climate change, poverty, violence and forced migration at the pace and scale required, we need action on a national and global scale. But as well as calling on governments and big corporations to act, we can each play our part now.
Never underestimate the difference our small actions as individuals can make. Taking our own bag to the shops, buying secondhand, mending things rather than replacing them… all this lessens the damage to the natural world and our global neighbours. The more we make changes in our lives, the more we change the thinking of people around us – and in the end big business and government have to follow where we lead. If this sounds impossible, think about how fast our behaviour changed during the pandemic… step by step, we can build a world based on peace, solidarity and care for our common home.