No room at the inn for refugees? Many Brits are happy to welcome strangers in need

Around the nation, thousands of mini-innkeepers have been delivering their well-rehearsed line in the annual nativity play. The children, most likely dressed in brown sheets and tea-towels, open their pretend doors only to close them again in the faces of the displaced couples on their doorsteps, proudly declaring or even singing “No rooms left.”

Some believe that Britain is as jam-packed as Bethlehem was that first Christmas – that our country is full, with no space for the most desperate of families. But up and down the country there are people ready and waiting to welcome strangers in need.

One month after the home secretary announced reforms to immigration policy, we are still waiting for details of the promised community sponsorship scheme, whereby communities will be able to select refugees they want to come to this country. While we wait, I bring her glad tidings of great joy – there are many people in our country who want to help make her proposed scheme a resounding success.

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In 2022, Britain was emerging from Covid lockdowns and wrestling with the cost of living crisis. Yet when asked to respond to the war in Ukraine, the nation opened its doors. Over 200,000 Ukrainians were resettled through community sponsorship – families sharing kitchens and bathrooms with strangers they had only met online. The programme worked, not just for Ukrainians, but for the communities who welcomed them.

Named community sponsorship, pioneered in Canada and then launched in the UK in 2016 – initially deployed for the resettlement of Syrian refugees – gives back control to local people. Families, communities, neighbours, churches or faith groups can extend an invitation to refugees they believe they have room for in their network and can pledge to support. It is not only empowering for local people, but dignifying for those who have found themselves in the most desperate of circumstances.

When home secretary Shabana Mahmood set out her reforms on the pathway to settlement, many felt her proposals echoed anti-immigrant tropes. Her measures represent a significant hardening of Britain’s approach to refugee protection – one I find deeply disturbing. But I do understand Mahmood’s desire to make sure Britain’s borders are controlled and secure. Named community sponsorship provides the necessary middle ground. It matches those in genuine need with those who have space in their lives and communities. It offers a lifeline to a few and showcases the best of what our country stands for.

This model works precisely because it addresses the concerns that make some communities resistant to refugee resettlement. When local people choose the refugees they want to come and commit to supporting them, integration succeeds in ways that top-down placement never could. Sponsors become advocates, ensuring the refugees receive a warm welcome and the practical help they need. Refugees gain social capital and employment connections faster. Long-term costs to the state fall.

There is strong evidence to support this approach. Research from More in Common shows this form of controlled and coordinated refugee resettlement is supported by the public – even among the most migration-sceptic segments of the population. This is because community sponsorship neutralises the sense of threat that some people feel when refugees are imposed on a certain area or neighbourhood.

US data also reinforces this: when safe and legal routes are made available, there is a significant reduction in unregulated migration. When people are given a realistic, dignified alternative to dangerous journeys and exploitative smuggling networks, they wait in line. Safe routes undercut the business model of traffickers, reduce chaos at borders and replace fear with order.

In other words, compassion and control are not opposites: well-designed humanitarian pathways like named community sponsorship are one of the most effective tools we have for restoring both public confidence and humane outcomes around migration.

Yet one month later, the scheme remains simply a promise without detail.

Britain does not need to choose between secure borders and humanitarian values. Named community sponsorship offers both. The nation that responded so generously to Ukraine are ready and waiting to do so again – as soon as the Home Office provides the framework to make it possible.

There is room at the inn.

Dr Krish Kandiah is the founder of the Sanctuary Foundation.

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