Pressure mounts on PM Cameron to reverse his stance on refugees

The British government is under mounting pressure to do more to save the vulnerable people trying to flee Europe from conflict zones in the Middle East and some African countries.

Lawmakers from across the party line, except anti-migrant UK Independence Party, called on Prime Minister, David Cameron to reverse his stance on the crisis and take in more of the many thousand refugees currently stuck on borders and crowded camps in Eastern Europe. "The UK should accept thousands, not hundreds of people", MP David Burrowes said.

Johnny Mercer and Jeremy Lefroy, two other MPs highlighted the suffering of the asylum seekers. Mercer said that there are many mothers who try to keep their children afloat on life jackets to reach to Europe. And, Lefroy said he believes the UK should accommodate more refugees while making efforts to tackle the causes of the crisis.

The strongest call came from Baroness Warsi, ex-Tory party chairman and former Foreign Office minister who said Britain could do more in response to the unfolding crisis. “Britain had a long and proud tradition of helping in times of crisis”. She said that Britain should show generosity like the 1930s when it allowed thousands fleeing persecution in Europe.

Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative on international migration also called on London to bear the burden saying Britain is one of the few countries that can do more.

'Hard-line stance'

The calls came a day after Prime Minster David Cameron said that accepting asylum seekers are not a solution to the crisis."We have taken a number of genuine asylum seekers from Syrian refugee camps and we keep that under review, but we think the most important thing is to try to bring peace and stability to that part of the world,” Cameron reacted to calls made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling alliance.

On Thursday, Cameron once again resisted pressure at home and abroad to accept a bigger share of Syrian refugees but he promised that Britain would fulfill its "moral responsibilities" in the crisis. Cameron said he had been "deeply moved" by images of a Syrian toddler found dead on a Turkish beach but he stopped short of making any new commitments.

 

“David Cameron statement is in stark contrast to the position taken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said that European countries take in more refugees and that Germany was prepared to take more. David Cameron has refused to do so and instead talk about solution in Syria where actually Britain is stoking crisis by helping terrorists. So Britain refuses to accept its responsibility to the crisis in Syria and Afghanistan where major refugees are coming from”, Chris Bambery, a London-based political commentator told Press TV.

Criticism of Europe's disparate laws and approaches to dealing with asylum seekers has mounted recently. Despite a positive call from German, Italian and French leaders, some governments continue to resist EU proposals to agree on a common plan.

Meanwhile, Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has urged Prime Minister Cameron to call an emergency debate and vote on the issue when Parliament returns from its summer recess next week. "This is everybody's problem. To start passing the buck in the way that our government are doing, the Hungarian government are doing, I think it misses the point entirely."

Fellow candidate Yvette Cooper has written to Cameron asking him to take in more refugees, and described the current situation as the "greatest humanitarian crisis to reach our continent since the Second World War".

'West's responsibility'

Most asylum seekers are fleeing war, poverty and persecution which are widely believed to stem from the West’s direct or indirect interference in those countries.

“Cameron’s own right-wing Conservative party members in parliament are saying that Britain should be doing more, witnessing the terrible scenes such as children being washed up at Turkey’s beaches or people drowning in the Mediterranean. There’s growing clamor in Britain for help to the refugees from war and instability that the West has caused. The biggest proportion of the people fleeing is from Syria and people from neighboring countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq because of the situation created by the West in wider parts. While people fleeing wars, there are also people who are fleeing dire poverty and the West was responsible for creating that too”, Bambery said.

According to the European Union's border agency, nearly 340,000 refugees have crossed the border into Europe from January to July 2015. The perilous journeys have left some 2,500 people dead so far this year. Only last week, scores of asylum seekers were found dead in abandoned trucks in Austria, near the Hungarian border.

The lackluster response to the crisis has also stocked tensions among the general public. European cities have witnessed many demonstrations in support of asylum seekers with people not only denouncing the ill-treatment of refugees but pressuring their governments to welcome those fleeing wars and poverty. 

Activists and human rights organizations have also called for a comprehensive review of the European immigration policy and a real commitment to create an EU-wide asylum response. The German chancellor has already warned that Europe’s failure on the question of the refugees will lead to "the destruction of universal civil rights".

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