Tim Farron on the refugee crisis

This is an extract from Tim Farron's speech to the Liberal Democrats' annual conference in Bournemouth this September and talks about his visit to the refugee camp in Calais - for the full speech go to http://www.libdems.org.uk/autumn-conference-2015-tim-farron

"As many of you know, during the summer, I went to Calais.

I went because I wanted to see what was going on for myself and because my liberal instinct told me to be suspicious when the establishment started pointing the finger at outsiders.

I wanted to gauge the scale of the problem, to see whether we were being told the truth, I wanted to see the people and not the label.

So I met with people and heard their stories of harrowing risks, dangers fled and desperation for their children.

I have to tell you, not a single one of them mentioned coming to Britain to draw benefits.

Indeed, more than that. Not a single one of them had ever heard of Britain's benefits system.

They wanted to come to Britain to be safe, to work, to contribute.

They see our country as a place of opportunity, a place where you can make the most of yourself, a place where you can be the best you can be - a liberal place.

Because I tell you frankly: you don't risk everything clinging to the bottom of a truck if you're looking for an easy life.

I met a 14 year-old boy who had broken both of his legs trying to board a lorry. He was in a wheelchair pushed by a boy who was 11. Both had lost their parents, both were alone.

And I realised that the UK government was ignoring their humanity, it was just stuck in media management mode, following not leading.

And the Government is still following the story. It's just a rather different one.

It's the body of a three year old boy face-down in the surf.

And what we've had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines.

And a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.

It's pitiful and embarrassing and makes me so angry.

Because I am proud to be British and I am proud of Britain's values, so when Mr Cameron turns his back on the needy and turns his back on our neighbours.

I want the world to know, he does not speak for me, he does not speak for us, he does not speak for Britain.

You know after the Second World War, Britain offered homes to several thousand children who had survived the death camps but whose parents had been murdered in the Holocaust.

Only 700 children came.

That was all who were left alive to take up our offer.

I know this story because 300 of them were sent to my patch to recuperate and became known as the Windermere boys.

This act was not an aberration; this was instinctively consistent with British values.

And so I find myself thinking about the Jewish refugees that our grandparents saved in the 1930s.

And I think about the Ugandan Asians offered a safe haven by our parents from that murderous tyrant, Idi Amin.

And it makes me realise the pride I feel in Britain when we do show such generosity of spirit.

But not only that.

I realise how much richer - culturally, socially, economically - our society is today, because of our generosity then.

What a lesson in seeing the best in people and not the worst.

What a lesson in liberalism.

As the party of outsiders, we will stand up for the outsiders.

And I will start today.

Winter is coming and the risks and hardships faced by those seeking sanctuary will only increase.

If you are shocked by the pictures on our TV screens today, just think how much worse they will look when the snows come to the Balkans.

If we don't act now, many more will die.

So I am calling on our Government to opt in now to the EU plan to take our share of the refugees to be relocated throughout the continent.

And I call on them to work with our neighbours to establish safe and sustainable reception centres, not only to process claims but to provide the shelter and security which the refugees so desperately need.

And I call on the Government to provide the necessary financial support that our local authorities will need to help settle refugees, so as not to set community against community.

We need an international solution to an international crisis.