Welby Warns Dropping Dubs Amendment Condemns Kids To Brothels - Or Death

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby talks with Mark Carney on BBC Radio 4's World At One

The Archbishop of Canterbury has stepped up his attack on the government's plan to stop accepting unaccompanied child refugees from Europe.

Justin Welby criticized the Home Office's announcement it would end the commitment under the Dubs' amendment after just 350 had been welcomed to the UK, rather than the 3,000 expected.

In a joint interview with Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, Welby said: 'The alternative is they will be trafficked and end up in brothels, end up in places where they are exploited, manipulated, ill-treated and very often killed.'

 
He told BBC's World at One he 'entirely understood' concerns raised by the Home Secretary that the scheme might provide a 'pull' leading to more trying to come to the UK.

But he said these children had been 'torn away from their families' and were 'unbelievably vulnerable'

He said they had not chosen to come to Europe but that this was 'the composition of something more extreme than any of us can imagine.'

He added: 'To leave the whole weight of this on Italy and Greece is deeply unjust.'

The Archbishop signed a joint declaration against modern slavery with the leader of the Eastern Orthodox church in Istanbul earlier this week.

The move was praised by the Prime Minister Theresa May but Welby has ramped up his political attacks on the government's u-turn on accepting lone child refugees this week.

He resisted attacking US President Donald Trump but admitted he would have a 'fascinating conversation' him about his attitude to wealth.

'That would be fun,' said the Archbishop who has written a book entitled Dethroning Mammon.

He emphasized it was 'both deeply morally wrong and deeply unlikely to help our future' to ignore Trump voters and others would had been neglected by the world's economic growth.

Turning to the referendum the Archbishop, who backed Remain, said he was 'not in the slightest bit pessimistic' about the UK's future and that it was a 'moment for a re-imagination of what this country is about'.

He called for a vision that is 'outward looking, that takes it place confidently in the world not merely for self protection but as a force for good.