Nigel Farage calls for Syrian refugees to be allowed into UK
Mr Farage said people were fleeing Syria in fear of their lives The UK should take in some refugees from Syria's civil war, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said.
He told BBC News there should be "an agreement between Western countries where people will take an allocation".
Mr Farage, who has led opposition to allowing open immigration from Romania and Bulgaria in the new year, said refugees were "a very different thing".
The UK government is refusing to accept Syrian refugees, saying it is better to offer financial help.
BBC political correspondent Arif Ansari said Mr Farage's call was likely to surprise many.
Mr Farage said: "I think refugees are a very different thing to economic migration and I think this country should honour the 1951 declaration on refugee status that was agreed.
"It was agreed with the UN and even through the European Court, which sadly has changed its role.
"But the original ideas of defining what a refugee is were good ones and I think, actually, there is a responsibility on all of us in the free West to try and help some of those people fleeing Syria, literally in fear of their lives."
'Miserably failing'He said it was time for "a proper debate" about "the difference between a refugee - who fears for his or her life - or somebody moving simply for economic benefit".
While Mr Farage did not put a figure on the estimated nine million Syrians displaced by war who should be allowed in the UK, Labour wants to accept 400 to 500.
On Saturday, the leaders of Britain's three main political parties issued a joint statement backing a UN appeal to raise £4bn to help Syrian refugees.
The UN says more than half of Syrians need food, water and medical aid David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg said the fate of a Syrian generation "hangs in the balance" with four million children caught up in the civil conflict.
The leaders said the UK would add to the £523m it had already committed and urged other nations to do the same.
The UK says its aid is providing support including food, medical care and relief items for people in Syria and to refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.
In a report released earlier this month, Amnesty International accused European Union leaders of "miserably failing" to provide a safe haven to Syrians.
Only 10 member states had offered to take in refugees and even then only 12,000, it complained.
Italy - like the UK - had offered no places at all, the organisation said.
More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the unrest began in Syria more than two years ago.
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