David Cameron made empty gestures over picture of drowned Syrian child, says Tim Farron

The Liberal Democrat leader accused the PM of trying to benefit from the tragedy

Tim Farron (PA)

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.”

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."

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.