I’m writing this in the week the Home Secretary took the decision to suspend the route to family reunification for refugees in the UK. It represents another erosion of the rights of those fleeing war, violence and persecution, and a painful new low in the UK’s departure from a long history of embracing refugee communities.

Reaching this point partly reflects the politicisation of refugee inclusion that has created that rarest of political phenomenon, consensus. In this case that the Channel crossings are at the apex of our ‘failing’ migration system. The policy responses may differ, but all major parties agree. The boats must be stopped.

To me, this is the depressing end point of a drip drip effect of negative, crisis narratives that have dominated the refugee sector since I started working it after graduating from Christ Church in 2016. Supported by the college, in my last year I joined two volunteering trips to Kos and Calais to support informal humanitarian relief efforts attempting to alleviate the suffering of those looking to claim asylum in Europe.

Coming out of those experiences, it was hard not to feel that compassion was a poor tool in the face of the systemic failures that lead people to take risk such dangerous journeys and suffer significant hardship in the hope of a safer home. When I graduated, this hardened into a belief that a focus on aid solutions risked exacerbating the polarised reaction to refugee arrivals. Where one person sees need, another can see burden.

So over the last decade I have focused on solutions that aim to build on everything that refugee communities can bring to new societies. At the centre of this work has been TERN (The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network), a social enterprise that I co-founded with my brother and three others to provide business support to refugee entrepreneurs right across the UK.

Since launching a small three-person pilot in late 2016, we have grown to support 1,000 refugee entrepreneurs and help launch 160 new refugee-led businesses in the UK. We have worked with people from close to 70 nationalities, building businesses in more than 20 industries. From London’s first Uzbek street food pop-up to a Ukrainian boxing academy and a survivor-led charity advocating against FGM/C, we’ve had the privilege of experiencing first-hand the talent, courage and ambition of this community.

Validation for this progress came in the form of the 2025 Cambridge Social Innovation Prize, a recognition from the Judge Business School of our contribution to inclusive innovation. It was a trigger for sharing this update as TERN is unlikely to exist without the platform Christ Church gave us to take those trips many years ago.

However, in truth it feels like we are, to a degree, failing in our wider mission of creating a world where refugees have a fair chance to build a livelihood. As recognition of all that refugee communities bring to our societies fades, the policy environment tips ever more steadily towards exclusion.

In response, we believe we must meet this moment with the ambition and commitment that our community embodies. If we can accelerate the growth of refugee-led enterprises and increase the collective voice of the refugee business community, we can offer a powerful rebuttal to those who see only threat from welcoming refugees.

To do this, we need to significantly increase the amount of capital and support reaching our start-up founders. This includes launching the UK’s first venture fund for refugee entrepreneurs, a £500,000 pilot aiming to invest in a first cohort of 10 high potential refugee founders in 2026.

If our work sounds interesting to you, please do reach out. Christ Church started this journey for me, and I know there are many in this community who could help shape our support in this pivotal moment for what comes next.

You can support our work here, or connect with me directly via charlie@wearetern.org.