How Boris Johnson could face one more defeat over Brexit

Many peers in the House of Lords are pushing to bring back the Dubs amendment on child refugees in the EU Withdrawal Bill, writes Sean O'Grady

Boris Johnson faces opposition in the House of Lords (PA)

It is not “a good look”, as they say, for the government of a wealthy civilised nation to be perceived to be unsympathetic to child refugees, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. And yet this is the allegation being levelled angst the Johnson administration by its critics, as it refuses to enshrine in the EU withdrawal bill a proposal that would give unaccompanied child refugees the right to be reunited with their families legally resident in the UK. Presently languishing in squalid and dangerous camps in northern France and Greece, they are homeless; all agree on the principle of family reunification but differ sharply in the best way to have it.

Lord (Alf) Dubs was himself a Jewish child refugee who arrived in Britain from Prague on the famous Kindertransport in 1938, effectively saving him from the Nazi death camps. Having made a life here and a career in Labour politics he has recently campaigned successfully to have the child refugees question resolved in legislation. His amendments to two previous Brexit bills, which would allow the refugees to come to the UK, were agreed by the May and the Johnson administrations. However, since the general election, the government has deleted the “Dubs amendment”. All of the Tories 328 MPs voting against it, and the government’s thumping majority in the Commons means that few if any amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement Bill will be accepted.

However, the government enjoys no overall majority in the House of Lords, and the Dubs amendment is expected to be inserted back into the legislation by Lord Dubs’ colleagues, on a cross-party basis.