Kirkhope: 'EU vote makes finding long-term solutions to migrant crisis more difficult'

Responding to the vote in the 22 September Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, European Conservatives and Reformists Group Home Affairs spokesman Timothy Kirkhope (pictured), said: "My greatest fear is that forcing such a divisive issue to a vote will have negative consequences in the long run. All 28 EU countries need to work together to manage this crisis and alienating major European states makes finding common solutions even harder.

"This is not a long-term solution to this crisis; it is a sticking plaster, and the way it has been handled diminishes much of the good will that will be needed to find genuine long term and more permanent solutions.

"We hear a lot about 'solidarity' in the EU. Enforcing a plan on a country that is strongly opposed to it is not solidarity, it is compulsion."

UKIP MEP Jane Collins said: "There is now no escaping the fact that immigration will be decided by Brussels."

"What we have witnessed today is four countries who wish to control who settles in their country being outvoted by foreign governments.

"Brussels has taken another giant step into territory which should be the sole right of national governments to decide upon.

"In the UK we know that politicians are out of sync with what the public want to happen about the migrant crisis and EU leaders are no different.

"The EU already have their Common Asylum and Immigration policy ready to go for next year and as we head into this referendum campaign we should keep this in the forefront of our mind in deciding whether we want to control who comes to live in our own country.

"The best policy would be to help genuine refugees in the camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, ending the demand for the people traffickers and stopping deaths at sea."

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