A Labour peer who fled the Nazis as a child has called for more celebrities to speak up for refugees in an exclusive interview with The London Economic.
Lord Dubs, the former MP for Battersea South, credited former Leicester City and Barcelona striker Gary Lineker for using his platform to support those fleeing war and persecution in their own countries.
The Labour peer, 90, who as a young Jewish boy left Czechoslovakia with his family in 1939, said Lineker has managed to add a positive narrative to a subject that has been turned increasingly toxic by those in government.
Lineker has been critical of the Home Office’s treatment of refugees in the past and their dangerous rhetoric towards them.
He has offered his Surrey home to a refugee from Balochistan and more recently to a man from Turkey who was caught up in a military coup and escaped 18 months of imprisonment.
Speaking about his view of the Government’s policy on migration, Lineker said: “I disagree with their policy. I think most people do. I don’t know whether it will actually be even legal.
“We’ll see if anyone ever does actually go there. But for me it’s more about the language that’s sometimes used generally across the board. You know, when they use words like ‘criminals’, and ‘rapists’ and ‘invasions’ and ‘swarms’.
“All I was asking for was a little bit of kindness.”
Related: Refugees who helped UK in Afghanistan ‘set to be made homeless at Christmas’