Good Morning Britain host Adil Ray became raged during a heat-fuelled discussion regarding the UK governments plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda on Thursday’s episode (April 14).
The 47-year-old TV personality was joined on the show by co-star Charlotte Hawkin’s when he clashed with Broadcaster and guest of the show Cindy Yu over the situation.
The two host’s later invited Sonia Sodja to join the conversation and things really did turn tense at one point.
Adil’s cage seemed to become more rattled as the debate went on, with the host criticising Cindy’s terminologies, adding that the “illegal refugees” narrative should be changed to “essentially desperate refugees”.
Cindy argued that last year it had been reported that over half of those deemed “illegal” were in fact legitimate asylum seekers.
(Image: ITV)
She said: “Yes, some of them will be economic migrants, but it was interesting because it was reported that over half of the claims last year were approved, over half of them are legitimate asylum seekers, so why are we not finding them safer methods?”
Cindy commented: “I appreciate that channel crossing is not good, people smugglers, we shouldn’t be offering people those options, but I’m not really sure Rwanda is the way forward.”
The broadcaster turned her attention to cost, explaining that the “government were not allowing them to contribute back” into the system.
(Image: ITV)
Bringing culture into the debate, Cindy urged: “There is a reason we treat Afghan refugees differently to Ukrainian refugees”.
“As someone who’s come from China, culture does matter.
“The similarity of culture that the UK has as a European country to Ukraine will matter in how we treat them,” she hit back.
Adil asked her “What elements of culture?”
(Image: ITV)
Cindy responded: “Like the Homes for Ukraine scheme for example, I think we should open that up to all refugees and allow any family that wants to to offer themselves up but I don’t think the uptake for that will be as high in the UK for Afghan refugees as it would be for Ukrainians.”
Getting fired up, Adil contested her argument, telling her: “I don’t understand your point, what’s the cultural appeal?”
In reply, she debated: “I don’t think we’re talking about appeal here, we talking about affinities, we’re talking about similarities. Likely to be Christian, likely to eat the same kind of food…”
Adil chirped back: “I just think it’s a really dangerous world we’re in, we’re looking at refugees and judging them by their religion or their colour or their creed or their background, they’re human beings.”
Cindy went on: “To have someone living in your home, I think is slightly different and we are talking about this kind of can we apply the Homes for Ukrainians scheme wider to other refugees but I think we should offer it.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
