Speaking on the BBC Three Counties JVS radio show on Wednesday 2nd September 2015,  David Campbell Bannerman MEP for the Eastern Counties said that the EU’s policies had made the European refugee crisis ‘far worse’.  The MEP rejected Labour MP Yvette Cooper’s demand that the UK should accept 10,000 refugees, saying that the UK was already paying £800millon in order to help Syria and was also providing assistance to the UN.   David Campbell Bannerman said that Yvette Cooper’s suggestion  ‘was not a sensible proposal’ for if ‘we allow in ten thousand one day,  why not 100,000 the next’.   The MEP said that the UN and other bodies were providing the most suitable support to refugees with camps close by in Turkey and elsewhere.  He went on to say that the UK cannot accept more people as the country was already too crowded with net migration levels now hitting their highest ever point at 330,000.  The MEP argued that this put huge strains on the UK’s hard pressed schools, hospitals and GP surgeries.   The MEP finished by saying that whilst he was sympathetic to the refugees’ plight, simply ‘opening the door, won’t work.’

Listen to the interview below: