BRITAIN should take in 50,000 Syrian refugees, Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, has said.
The estimated £4.3 billion cost of the initiative would be paid back over time by the taxes and hard work of those who settle in Britain, he argued.
"The United Kingdom has taken a pitiful number of people and only done it under extreme pressure, when the Government has been made to feel under pressure.
"This is Britain doing what Britain always should have done in being a place of sanctuary.
"For all that we focus on Brexit, and lots of other things as well, the biggest humanitarian crisis facing our continent is still going on and Britain is turning its back and pretending it's not happening,” he declared.
"If you show confidence in people and give them sanctuary they become very loyal citizens. We are only talking about 50,000 people. We are talking about doing what is right," stressed Mr Farron.
He insisted that the move, along with reopening the programme to settle lone child refugees, would be fully costed in the Lib Dem manifesto.
The Lib Dem leader, who was visiting a refugee charity in Gloucestershire, said the numbers of new arrivals would be absorbed over five years.
The current Government programme aims to take in 20,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict by the end of the decade.
At the refugee charity, Mr Farron urged the UK Government to put more resources into teaching new arrivals English so they could find work and contribute to society through taxes.
Iman Nabout, who fled Syria with her husband and two children, cried as she told the party leader how happy and thankful she was to be in the UK.
Mr Farron, who played table football with a refugee at the charity centre, said the UK must show the same moral leadership over Syria as it did when taking in survivors of Nazi concentration camps in 1945.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel