I spent this morning learning about a young woman called Anastasiia. She’s a 21-year-old economics student from Kyiv. Her parents want her out of Ukraine now – they fear for her life. Anastasiia’s mum and dad are staying behind to help with the war effort.

Anastasiia applied for a visa to get to Britain under the Homes for Ukraine scheme – which sees ordinary families take refugees under their roof. Matthew and Virginia Zajac, actor/directors from Glasgow, have offered Anastasiia shelter. However, nearly two weeks have passed since Anastasiia’s visa application, and still no paperwork has been granted. Time has run out, she can’t wait on British promises anymore. So right now, Anastasiia is on her way to Warsaw and then Dublin. Ireland has no visa requirement, so Dublin will now be her safe haven rather than Scotland.

Anastasiia is just one of thousands of desperate Ukrainians sold a lie by the British Government. The campaigning Scottish refugee charity Positive Action in Housing – which paired Anastasiia with the Zajacs – has around 500 Ukrainian refugees on its books, hoping to find a home here. The charity also has more than 5500 families offering to shelter refugees. However, not one – not a single one – of those refugees has yet been granted a visa by the British Government, despite all the goodwill and compassion on offer from ordinary people.

Here’s what Matthew Zajac had to say about how the UK government’s actions have denied Anastasiia a home with his family. “It’s disgraceful. Look at the rest of the European countries. They’re putting people’s safety first and foremost, not bureaucracy. Dealing with paperwork after people are safe is the only way to go about it. We’re just outraged.”

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I asked Michael Gove’s Department for Levelling Up – the arm of the UK government responsible for the Homes for Ukraine scheme – how many refugees had made it into Britain under its direction. I was told they currently didn’t have figures.

Last week, I spent a lot of time speaking to the Abramov family – Vlad, Natallia and six-year-old Margarita. They fled Kyiv as bombs fell around them. Today, they’re holed up in Romania, enduring an agonising wait to hear if their visa application under the Homes for Ukraine scheme has been successful.

Positive Action in Housing paired them with Dr Rachel Smith’s family in Glasgow but they can’t get here until their paperwork is okayed by the government. Even then, the application was torturous. The two families took days completing the forms together over WhatsApp. The Abramovs have excellent English (that’s why they want to come here as their language skills will help them get work) so how would refugees with no English or internet access fare?

Britain is the only European country demanding Ukrainian refugees have visas to enter. Why? What makes Britain so special? Apart from the cruelty of the Conservative government. Why is Ireland stepping in where Britain fails?

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Even if the Homes for Ukraine scheme was working – and bringing refugees here – it’s still dangerously flawed. It appears the only checks being done on Britons offering a home to refugees is by charities. If refugees aren’t liaising with charities they risk asking for a home with someone who may exploit them. Untold numbers of refugees are simply connecting with Britons on Facebook. Many are lone mothers with children, young women, or unaccompanied minors – all of whom are already being preyed on by sex traffickers as they flee their own country.

The British Government – which acts in our name – is deliberately making a dire situation worse, and unnecessarily complicated. As Robina Qureshi, Positive Action in Housing’s director, says: “The UK government is doubly endangering the lives of Ukrainians trying to flee the war – families, young people and unaccompanied minors – first by forcing refugees to wait in war zones for visas, and secondly by leaving them to turn in desperation to strangers on social media for sponsors.”

The British Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme is phoney. It’s duplicitous. It’s an exercise in the most grotesque, wilful, hypocritical, self-serving virtue-signalling. It’s gaslighting Ukrainian refugees – duping them into believing our government cares; and it’s deceiving British people. There’s been an upswell of support for Ukraine in Britain – we want to help. But Britain’s government isn’t helping, it’s hindering.

There’s also something rotten about the idea of the government off-loading its duty to ordinary Britons. It stinks of that old racist rhetoric – comments like ‘well, if you care about refugees so much, why don’t you take one into your house’. That’s just what the Tory government is saying – but wrapped up in feel-good phoniness.

Recently, I spoke to Sabir Zazai, head of the Scottish Refugee Council. His organisation points out that thousands of seasonal Ukrainian workers in Britain aren’t allowed to bring their families to the UK, even with visas. It’s a “scandal in plain sight”, the council says. If Boris Johnson’s government cared, this rule would change in an instant.

The British Government is tarnishing the good name of the British people. It’s hiding its own lack of compassion, empathy and humanity behind our decency. The Scottish Government is also being played for fools. Anastasiia, for instance, applied under Scotland’s ‘super sponsor’ scheme. It got her nowhere.

The Scottish Government should be hounding the UK government on a daily basis – demanding the immediate lifting of the visa requirement. Nicola Sturgeon’s administration says it cares – so really show it: shame the Johnson administration loud and clear over what it’s doing with its underhand refugee policy.

There’s more than two million Ukrainian refugees in Poland, half a million in Romania, 371,000 in impoverished Moldova. Ireland is planning for 68,000 but accepts the figure could grow to 200,000. It says it all that the UK government refuses to reveal how many Ukrainian refugees are even in Britain.

When I spoke to the Abramovs last week, their sheer joy at knowing the British people welcomed them was humbling. That the UK government is willing to throw the kindness of the British people down the toilet shames not just the Johnson administration but all of us for letting them get away with this dirty rotten lie.

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