EXCLUSIVE: Hodge brands UK efforts to grant visas to Ukrainian refugees 'pathetic'

Dame Margaret Hodge recalled the “battle” to allow Jews escaping from the German Nazis to enter the UK as she called for the British Government to be far more generous in granting visas to refugees now escaping war-raged Ukraine.

Speaking to Jewish News in her Westminster office on Tuesday, the Labour MP described it as “pathetic” that by Tuesday only 300 visas had been granted to Ukrainians desperately attempting to escape Russian bombardment of their country by moving here.

But Hodge, the Jewish Labour Movement’s parliamentary chair, refused to point the finger of blame solely at Home Secretary Priti Patel, who she said was at least “trying” to do something to resolve the refugee crisis.

Dame Margaret Hodge

Instead the veteran MP suggested a “hollowing out of the civil service” following a decade of government cuts had “destroyed the machinery of government that is needed to deliver on policies.”

Having caught up with the latest newspaper reports on the dire situation in Ukraine, the 78 year-old parliamentarian, who was born to Jewish refugee parents herself, said: “Women, kids, older people clambering over rivers and trying to escape the bombing – I just think you have got to put an arm out and welcome them.

“So often with this government they are saying they are going to do something, and then they just don’t do it in practice.

“We are up from 50 visas granted to 300, but with the number of Ukraininans saying they want to come here, it is still pathetic.”

Recalling the Jews’ escape from the Nazis

Hodge admitted she could not help recalling the situation in the 1930s, as Jews attempted to escape persecution from Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime with the same reluctance of the British government to “be generous now.”

She said: “We always do too little too late.

“To be honest, when the Jews were escaping from Germany we didn’t open our arms. Before 1939 it wasn’t easy to get in.

“Even with the kindertransport, it was a battle to let those kids in. I feel it personally, that we need to be more generous now.”

Hodge, who says she will always think of herself as an “immigrant”, is quick to clarify that her own parents, who had left Germany in the 1930s to move to Egypt, and had again left fearing persecution in Cairo in 1948 after the creation of the state of Israel, were not escaping actual war as the Ukrainian refugees are now.

But she added: “If we hadn’t come here what would have happened? “We were turned down by America, Australia and Canada.

“The Brits were the first to eventually say yes to us. I still remember how proud my late father was when he received an MBE in 1978. That was a symbol to him that at last we were accepted into this country.

“I just feel that we should do much more to help with the situation now. We are big enough, we are wealthy enough – we should be generous enough to understand.”

We are the jurisdiction of choice for kleptocrats, human traffickers & Putin's cronies. It should not have taken a war in Ukraine for us to halt this avalanche of dirty money.

Today's legislation is one small step to sorting the mess, but much more must be done. pic.twitter.com/bi5pdz1ba3

— Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge) March 7, 2022

Claims that UK could be overwhelmed by Ukrainians dismissed as “paranoia”

Hodge dismissed as “paranoia” the fears that the UK could become overwhelmed with those wishing to settle here from Ukraine.

She said this would not materialise “partly I think, because we have now got a reputation for being a hostile environment for immigrants.”

But Hodge added most Ukranians would want to be where “friends and relatives are going to be” and would “want to be close to their country to go back if it ever becomes safe enough to return.”

Bomb damage in Kharkiv

The MP said the Home Office should now set out to be “as generous as we can be” and recognise that any Ukrainian leaving the country “at this point is escaping violence and conflict in their lives.”

Hodge added: “There should not be a question mark around that, once you have obviously established someone’s identity.”

But the MP for Barking refused to join those who have been attacking the Home Secretary over the slow process for letting in refugees.

“Having talked to her yesterday, I think she is really trying,” Hodge said. “I think she means it… I just don’t think she can deliver it.”

The outspoken MP said that “after over a decade of cuts, they have really hollowed up the ability of the civil service to do anything.”

She continued:” “They can scream as loudly as they want – but they have destroyed the machinery of government they need to deliver policies.

“That goes for the Home Office, immigration authorities, the people who are sanctioning Russians. Why are we behind all of the time?”

Putin branded “cynical and sickening”

Hodge also told how she was “appalled” that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had repeatedly resorted to claims he was attempting a “denazification” of Ukraine with his war.

And that he had attempted to suggest Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky , who is Jewish, was at the helm of a “Nazi” army.

“I think its a cynical and sickening,” she said. “He is exploiting what must always be seen as one of the biggest human tragedies in the history of the world.

“Putin is exploiting that to justify a terrible war.”

Hodge, who heads the cross-party MPs group against corruption, has long called for the UK government to address the scourge of economic crime, and had warned in the Commons that the country was now “the jurisdiction of choice for a lot of dirty money”.

Back in 2018, writing for the Guardian, she called for a “clamp down on Russian use of Britain as a safe haven for illegal wealth.”

She added: ” Britain has become the jurisdiction of choice for kleptocrats, crooks and money launderers – including Russians – because of our weak regulatory framework, shrouded in secrecy and very lightly policed.”

In the Commons last month, she greeted PM Johnson’s announcement of sanctions against those oligarchs residing in this country with links to Putin’s regime, by telling MPs the” new sanctions regime against Russia is flawed. ”

She reasoned: “Too many of the kleptocrats that have stolen from the Russian people and support Putin will escape the net. ”

She now describes the government’s Economic Crime Bill, designed to tackle “dirty money” hidden in the UK after calls to clamp down on Russian oligarchs amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, as “still not fit for purpose.”

For those who are asking, here is the link to my full spoken contribution yesterday, which lists the 10 names I read out in Parliament:https://t.co/RKwAmTEGPc https://t.co/DCRg5CLPMO

— Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge) March 2, 2022

On Monday evening MPs voted down by a majority of 74 a cross-party amendment proposed by Hodge, which would have required the minister to publish a report on the funding of enforcement agencies in connection with the reforms to “unexplained wealth orders.”

But she is hopeful that further amendments in the Lords will ensure continued gaps in the Bill are tightened.

Hodge does not dispute the fact that the last Labour government, under Tony Blair, and chancellor Gordon Brown were responsible for opening the country up to wealthy individuals from nations such as Russia, who had benefited from the collapse of the Soviet Union, to move here.

She accepts Blair and Brown “put their all into deregulation of financial services” and they introduced the “golden visa” policy that allowed Russian oligarchs to move here with ease.

But it was, she says, only after she was made chair of the Public Accounts Committee in 2010, that she “realised we were becoming the jurisdiction of choice for dirty money.”

Hodge says she thinks Boris Johnson’s Conservatives are far more compromised that Labour were over allegations involving Russian money.

“This government has been around for over 10 years now and they have failed to regulate,” she says, pointing to the current post-Brexit era, and suggesting the government are particularly reliant on the financial services sector as “they need the money here.”

“Britain has become the jurisdiction of choice for kleptocrats, crooks and money launderers – including Russians – because of our weak regulatory framework, shrouded in secrecy and very lightly policed.”

She accused the government of “only talking to the people we call the enablers.”

Hodge added: “There is also corruption in the financial sector… we have allowed secrecy to prevail. The Russian money in politics… Russian money is infecting British politics.”

In the Commons, Hodge has also repeatedly used parliamentary privilege to name Russian oligarchs she believes should face sanctions, including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, over their alleged links to Putin’s regime.

Last week, with claims that the government could soon announce sanctions against him, Abramovich announced that he was selling the West London football club for £3 billion. There were further claims his luxury home and other London properties were also up for sale.

Away from his financial dealings, Abramovich had invested considerable sums of money into Chelsea’s efforts to tackle antisemitism, and with an extensive programme around Holocaust commemoration.

Hodge says the fact “he helped is good” although she also expresses long-held concerns about oligarchs attempting to “create soft power in Britain.”

Last December, she announced she would be standing down as a Labour MP ahead of the next general election, having already served 27 years in Westminster.

But issues such as “dirty money” have left Hodge busier than ever.

And she won’t be slowing down soon, she insists. – citing work on-going work around the Online Safety regulations on cladding, and on forcing a public inquiry into allegations of homophobia in the Metropolitan Police, as being on her list of must-dos.