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 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, includingChuka 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.