David Cameron made empty political gestures in response to a picture of a child drowned trying to escape Syria, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has said.
Tim Farron accused the Prime Minister is trying to “manage” the news story about the tragedy and benefit politically from the public outcry after the picture’s release without actually helping refugees.
“It's the story of the body of a three-year-old boy face down in the surf,” Mr Farron told his party in his first speech as leader.
“What we’ve had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines – and a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.”
Read more:
These pictures must change Britain's mind about refugees
First of 20,000 refugees arrives in Britain
A picture of a boy named Aylan Al-Kurdi was widely published earlier this month. The three-year-old’s body washed up on a beach in Turkey after a group of 11 Syrians drowned in a failed attempt to flee the civil war in their home country.
The Liberal Democrat leader, who now leads a caucus of eight MPs, described Mr Cameron’s response to the tragedy as “pitiful and embarrassing” and warned that the situation would become worse as winter approached.
"If you are shocked by the pictures on our TV screens today, just think how much worse they will look when the snows come to the Balkans,” he said.
"If we don’t act now, many more will die. So I am calling on our Government to opt in now to the EU plan to take our share of the refugees to be relocated throughout the continent."
The refugee crisis - in pictures
After the picture’s release Mr Cameron said the UK would take 4,000 refugees a year, sometimes characterised by the Government as 20,000 over the rest of the Parliament.
Other countries, notably Germany, have taken significantly more - with up to a million people expected to arrive in that country within a year.
The UK has opted out of a quota scheme to relocate and house around 120,000 refugees who are already on the move in Europe.
Today Mr Cameron said the EU had to "do more to return migrants" to their countries of origin as he met with other European leaders in Brussels to discuss the refugee crisis.
