Accepting more refugees is not the solution: British PM

"We have taken a number of genuine asylum seekers from Syrian refugee camps and we keep that under review, but we think the most important thing is to try to bring peace and stability to that part of the world,” said Cameron on Wednesday in reaction to calls made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance.
 
On Tuesday, the spokesman for the alliance, Stephan Mayer, said that Britain’s current stance on refugees may prove harmful to Cameron’s plans to regenerate EU ties. "If the British Government is continuing to hold this position that Great Britain is out of the club in this big task in sharing the burden, certainly this could do some harm to the bilateral British-German relationship, and certainly also to David Cameron's ambitions to be successful."
 
    Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham, both Labor party leader candidates, have also made calls on the government to accept some 10,000 asylum seekers. "This is a humanitarian crisis, not just a tedious inconvenience for British holidaymakers, as our government might have us believe," said Burnham.
 
    "I don't think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more and more refugees," Cameron says.
 
Tens of thousands of asylum seekers from conflict-hit states in the Middle East and Africa have been trying to make their way to Europe via the Mediterranean in recent months, leaving a number of countries struggling to cope with the influx.
 
Nearly 340,000 asylum seekers reached the European Union’s borders during the first seven months of the year, up from 123,500 during the same period in 2014, according to the bloc's border agency Frontex.
 
Meanwhile, people who want a more humane response by the Downing Street have put up a petition calling on the British government to accept more refugees. The petition has received over 25,000 signatures by Thursday, September 3.
 
    "There is a global refugee crisis. The UK is not offering proportional asylum in comparison with European counterparts," reads the petition. "We can't allow refugees who have risked their lives to escape horrendous conflict and violence to be left living in dire, unsafe and inhumane conditions in Europe."
 
The British government is expected to respond to the demand, as all petitions that get more than 10,000 signatures should be seen into. The country’s legislation also stipulates that any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered by the UK parliament for debate.