The 1951 Refugee Convention was born from a catastrophic failure.

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In the 1930s and 1940s, countries turned away people fleeing violence and persecution, with devastating consequences. After the Second World War, Britain helped build a shared legal framework to ensure that people forced to flee could seek safety and rebuild their lives. We were not merely a signatory, but one of its key architects.

That framework remains a source of national pride. But its 75th anniversary, which fell in July, arrived at a moment of profound danger. Wars in Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine and Afghanistan are forcing families from their homes, while conflicts are lasting longer and becoming harder to resolve. I recently returned from Sudan, where that reality was impossible to ignore: women fleeing sexual violence used as a weapon of war, parents watching severely malnourished children slip away, and communities struggling to rebuild devastated health systems and farmland. At precisely this moment, humanitarian funding and resettlement places are shrinking.

Governments have long assumed the British public no longer cares about people fleeing conflict overseas. But new YouGov polling suggests otherwise. 59% of Britons........

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