PM ‘to accept 3,000 more child migrants’ after Sam-Cam charity’s plea
BRITAN could take in thousands of child refugees who have made their way to Europe, under plans being considered by David Cameron.
The Prime Minister’s wife Samantha is an ambassador for Save the Children which is leading the campaign to let in unaccompanied children and she spoke recently of her horror at the tragic stories of Syrian mothers and children living in refugee camps in Lebanon.
She highlighted the ‘harrowing’ story of a mother whose three-yearold son - the same age as her youngest child at the time - was killed by a sniper as they tried to flee Syria.
Mr Cameron has already offered to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years - directly from sprawling camps in the Middle East.
But Downing Street now says ministers are looking seriously at calls from charities to take in an additional 3,000 under-18s who have already reached Europe. The Prime Minister announced plans to let in 20,000 refugees last September after an outcry at photographs of tragic three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who was washed up on a beach in Turkey after an overcrowded boat carrying his family capsized.
At the time, it was claimed that Mrs Cameron was a ‘huge influence’ in the shift on the Government’s refugee policy, although Mr Cameron dodged questions on her role, simply saying that ‘as a father and as a human being you can’t help be moved by those terrible pictures.’
In the summer of 2013, when Mrs Cameron visited the refugees, a cabinet minister told the Mail that she was the ‘biggest explanation’ for the Prime Minister’s interventionist approach to the conflict – which was to lead to a vote on air strikes against President Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people. It was defeated after opposition from Ed Miliband and 30 Tories.
Justine Greening, the international development secretary confirmed yesterday (Sun) that the Government is ‘looking at whether we can do more… over the coming days and weeks’ in relation to unaccompanied children.
Ministers are under pressure to take in a share of the unaccompanied minors who have fled war-torn countries including Syria and Afghanistan alone. The campaign is backed by Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who visited refugee camps in Calais and Dunkirk this weekend.
Whitehall sources yesterday (Sun) suggested that any child refugees taken in would be within the 20,000 rather than in addition.
Miss Greening rejected suggestions from Labour that the Government has not done enough to help refugees. She told Sky News: ‘No country in Europe has done more to help Syrian refugees. We’ve said that over the course of this Parliament we will resettle 20,000 refugees. We’re going to do that in a safe, and measured and a managed way, working with UN agencies taking them directly from the region, it means we can focus on the most vulnerable people including children who otherwise would have no chance to make the kind of journey that we’ve seen other refugees make.’
But Ukip’s Suzanne Evans said: ‘It’s very easy to look at a refugee child and want to mother them and to look after them and to take them in but you have to ask the question, who is going to pick up the tab?’
Eurosceptic Tories have warned that migrants linked to a wave of alleged sex attacks in Germany will be able to move to Britain if it remains part of the European Union.
Former defence secretary Liam Fox said: ‘I do not want the mistakes made by Angela Merkel in opening the doors to migration in Germany to be reflected in Britain’s security’.
‘Who is going to pick up the tab?’