Cameron's 'bunch of migrants' jibe is callous and dehumanising, say MPs

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Prime minister’s PMQs attempt to criticise Jeremy Corbyn sparks accusations of inflammatory language

 

 

Rowena Mason and Frances Perraudin

 

Wednesday 27 January 2016 13.11 GMT

 

 

 

David Cameron has been accused of using inflammatory language about refugees after referring to people in camps at Calais as a “bunch of migrants”.

 

The prime minister made the comments in the House of Commons on Wednesday as he criticised Jeremy Corbyn’s call for Britain to do more to help refugees in French camps.

 

Pointing at the Labour leader and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, Cameron said: “The idea that those two right honourable gentlemen would stand up to anyone in this regard is laughable. Look at their record over the last week.

 

“They met with the unions and gave them flying pickets. They met with the Argentinians, they gave them the Falkland Islands. They met with a bunch of migrants in Calais, they said they could all come to Britain. The only people they never stand up for are the British people and hardworking taxpayers.”

 

Cameron made the remarks as Corbyn tackled him about the £130m ($185.6M) tax deal struck between Revenue & Customs and Google.

 

A spokesman for the Labour leader said the prime minister’s comments were evidence of a “wholly contemptible” attitude to refugees. “The people that we saw in Calais and Dunkirk at the weekend – families, kids, babies – I don’t think it’s right to refer to them as a ‘bunch of migrants’,” he said.

 

Cameron’s language also drew criticism from backbench Labour MPs, including Chuka Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, who said it was inflammatory and unbecoming of the prime minister’s office, and Mary Creagh, a former Labour leadership hopeful, who said it was “dehumanising language”.

 

Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary, said the comments were “callous”.

 

Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, said: “Once again, Cameron’s mask slips. He just dismissed desperate people fleeing conflict as a ‘bunch of migrants’ – on Holocaust Memorial Day.”

 

Cameron has so far only allowed about 1,000 refugees from Syrian camps to come to the UK, promising that Britain would take in up to 20,000 people by 2020.

 

He is considering whether to admit some unaccompanied migrant children from Calais but defended the current strategy when asked on Wednesday by Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, to do more.

 

Yvette Cooper, who leads Labour’s taskforce on refugees, also highlighted the fact that it is Holocaust Memorial Day and raised a point of order with the Speaker, asking whether he agreed Cameron’s phrase was inappropriate.

 

John Bercow said he empathised with Cooper but Cameron’s use of language was neither disorderly nor unparliamentary.

 

A spokesperson for the prime minister said: “The point the PM was making was that he very strongly disagrees with the approach that Labour are now taking, which is to allow people from Calais into Britain, to open the doors to migrants. That will only make the situation in Calais much worse. It will produce a huge draw to Calais.

 

“No country in Europe has done more to help migrants affected by the conflict in Syria. We’ve given nearly £1.2bn ($1.71B) [to agencies dealing with the crisis] and that is going to food, shelter and education for hundreds of thousands of people in refugee camps.”

Asked whether the prime minister thought he had used appropriate language, his spokesperson said: “The prime minister thinks that the key thing here is to get the policies right. That’s what the people of Britain are really concerned about.”

 

 

Two migrants watch the clearing of dismantled shelters at the Calais camp.

Photograph: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/27/david-cameron-bunch-of-migrants-jibe-pmqs-callous-dehumanising