Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected calls on Monday for Britain to ease visa-demands on Ukrainian refugees fleeing conflict, saying Britain was a generous country but it needed to maintain checks on who was arriving.
“We are a very, very generous country. What we want though is control and we want to be able to check,” he told reporters. “I think it’s sensible given what’s going on in Ukraine to make sure that we have some basic ability to check who is coming in.”
“What we won’t do is have a system where people can come into the UK without any checks or any controls at all – I don’t think that is the right approach – but what we will do is have a system that is very, very generous.”
“As the situation in Ukraine deteriorates people are going to want to see this country open our arms to people fleeing persecution, fleeing a war zone.”
PM Johnson also said he would be speaking with U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders later on Monday. He was speaking during a visit to a British military base with Canadian leader Justin Trudeau and Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
He said Britain wanted to go further on sanctions both at home and also by encouraging international allies to do more.
“I think we’ve got to recognize that we’ve got to do more on sanctions and there is more we can do, and more that I think we should do. So, on SWIFT, there’s more that the world can do, on banking, there’s more than the world can do.”