ON Tuesday the Tele had a front page story with the headline ‘Bombing Suspect was in Inverclyde’.

This was followed up by a story inside the paper titled ‘Terror suspect visited Inverclyde’ and the story was shared on the paper’s Facebook page.

This was of course in relation to a suspect in the attack at Parsons Green tube station in London last week.

The Greenock Telegraph’s Facebook page attracted hundreds of comments from people across Inverclyde.

If I am being brutally honest, I have never been more disheartened to be an Inverclyde councillor.

Many people believe that as the suspect is from Iraq, this is now justification to take Inverclyde’s refugee community and ‘send them home’.

My first challenge of course would be, send them home to where? They have no home to return to, their homes are now in Inverclyde.

The reason they are in Inverclyde is because many fled civil war in Syria after their homes were destroyed.

The criteria for resettlement in the UK is that there were pressing humanitarian or security concerns and that they were not able to return to their country of origin.

Many of the children that came to Scotland as part of the resettlement scheme – participation of the scheme is pretty much a prerequisite of being a member of the UN (United Nations) – had lived their entire lives either in a warzone or in precarious circumstances.

In a time when many things can get you down in the modern world, nothing makes me smile more than when I walk past a refugee family and see the smiles on their children’s faces. Many readers may have lived through the Greenock Blitz or had family members who recalled first hand their experience of the horror.

These are the very circumstances that we have helped rescue these children and their families from.

What rational person would ever consider sending a child back to that sort of environment?

Of course we all need to be vigilant in an era of terrorism, but we must reject the rhetoric of those that will try and use it to advance a politics of fear.

When countries around the world were turning their back on the greatest humanitarian crisis of our age, Inverclyde said welcome.

I have never been more proud to be a son of Inverclyde than on the Tuesday morning in November 2015 when a plane full of refugees touched down in a typical West of Scotland downpour and the first Syrian refugees were welcomed here.

As I mentioned earlier, I was saddened to read the volume of negative comments, but I do not believe they represent the compassionate spirit that we all know Inverclyde is famous for.

In truth, if I ever thought that the majority of people wanted to turn their back on those that need our help the most then I would resign my position as I don’t want to represent an area like that.

For as long as I am elected to serve on Inverclyde Council I will continue to preach our motto – refugees welcome.