Poll: Should the UK support search and rescue missions to save desperate immigrants trying to reach Europe?
The UK Government's refusal to support future search and rescue missions to save desperate immigrants trying to reach Europe is "inhuman" and may be contrary to international law, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon has warned.
The former leader of the Liberal Democrats hit out at the "discreditable" policy and urged the Government to disagree with the European Union on the issue.
The Italian mission in the Mediterranean is being wound up after rescuing tens of thousands of people making the treacherous journey from North Africa, with a more limited European Union border security operation being launched on November 1.
Earlier this month the Government set out its opposition to search and rescue operations, warning that they might encourage more illegal immigrants to attempt the crossing.
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Lord Ashdown told the House of Lords: "This is a discreditable policy whatever words are used to describe it.
"We do not find it difficult to disagree with the European Union on all sorts of other matters.
"Do we have to lay our hand to a European policy whose central proposition is that the best way to discourage people from seeking a better life is to leave them to drown in the Mediterranean?
"This is inhuman, it is discreditable and it may well be contrary to our duties under international law to do everything we can to save those in peril in the sea."
Home Office minister Lord Bates, who had repeated an answer to an urgent question given in the House of Commons by James Brokenshire, defended the Government's position.
"Those obligations that are there under the laws of the sea, under maritime law and under humanitarian law will remain as obligations on any vessels that come across people who are making this journey," he said.
"The question is, how do we actually tackle this increasing trend in a way that is effective?
"This is not something that is the UK alone, this is something that was pored over on the basis of evidence and intelligence that was coming to the (EU) Justice and Home Affairs Council and all 28 member states, which is a pretty rare achievement, agreed this was having regrettably a counter-productive effect."
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