Thousands march in London during pro-refugee demonstration

Thousands of people, including MPs and celebrities, have joined a march in London to urge the government to take more action on the refugee crisis.

Organised by Solidarity with Refugees, groups such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Refugee Council and Stop the War Coalition joined forces for the Refugees Welcome demonstration.

On Monday, a UN summit for refugees and migrants hosted by Barack Obama will be held in New York and Theresa May is due to attend.

The capital’s Park Lane was filled with colourful placards carrying slogans such as “No-one is illegal”, “Stop the drowning”, “Choose love” and “Be human”, as protesters began the procession while chanting: “Theresa May, you will say refugees are welcome here.”

Actors Vanessa Redgrave, Douglas Booth and Juliet Stevenson joined them, with some giving speeches at the rally that followed in Parliament Square. Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas MP, Labour’s Alf Dubs and Liberal Democrat campaigner Shas Sheehan also spoke.

Redgrave said on stage: “Citizens in this country, of whatever background, all want to obey the law. There are human rights laws. The present government and previous governments, both Labour, coalition and Conservative, have been breaking international human rights law. We must hold them to account.”

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Lord Dubs, who arrived in the UK under the Kindertransport programme for Jewish children as a six-year-old fleeing Nazi persecution, said in his speech that the government has been “pretty hopeless” at dealing with the issue.

He told the crowd as he pointed towards parliament: “I tell you, speaking here is a million times better than speaking in there. There is only one thing that is shifting this government and that is the force of public opinion and that means you.”

Solidarity with Refugees director Ros Ereira agreed, and said so far she thinks there has been a lack of leadership over taking action on the issue.

“This week is going to be Theresa May’s first opportunity as our prime minister to represent us at a global summit,” she said.

“I really hope she is going to set the tone for what kind of a country we can be post-Brexit and with her new leadership. Hopefully she will want to portray us as an open, tolerant, welcoming society that wants to play an important role on the global stage and lead an appropriate global humanitarian response.”

Lucas said the solution to the refugees crisis is “not just humanitarian, it is political will”.

She added: “It is not a crisis of the numbers of people coming, it is a crisis about the way the government is managing it.”

The Brighton Pavilion MP said the government had “failed to recognise that those seeking refuge in the UK are not desperate to come here, they are just desperate.”

According to the UN’s refugee agency, more than 3,200 people have died or gone missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.

Figures show a total of almost 300,000 people have attempted the journey and thousands remain stranded in Greece and Italy in poor living conditions.

Last year’s Refugees Welcome event attracted 100,000 demonstrators according to the organiser and took place shortly after the publication of pictures of refugee toddler Alan Kurdi’s body washed up on a Turkish beach.

Following that rally, the government agreed to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. However, Ereira said progress since then has been much too slow. “We were really excited to hear the agreement was made.

“I was always going to wish it would be more and better than that – but it was a huge step in the right direction. We are not on track to be meeting that commitment at the moment and of course we need to be doing more. The situation is growing, there are people dying and we need to stop that happening.”

Some of the demonstrators at the rally were refugees. Kais Aldahoul, originally from the Syrian capital Damascus, came to the UK in 2009 to study at university and has stayed since the outbreak of war.

The 24-year-old said he joined the march to “support the situation. It is getting worse and worse by the day.”

“It is about more support, not necessarily bringing in more refugees, but to help the camps around Europe – the situations in them [are] pretty horrendous.”

He said if he had returned to his home country he would have experienced war, because military service is compulsory.

On why he stayed in the UK, he said: “Just before the end of university is when everything [in Syria] happened – I had no choice, where was I supposed to go?”

Mirela Reljan-Delaney, 44, came to the UK to escape the situation in her home country of Croatia in the 1990s. “I could not work, I could not go out. I could not take sides and hate or kill someone – it was really bad,” she said.

Unable to return, she made a life in the UK and said she just wanted to educate herself and live. “This issue is very important – everyone should have the right to live where they can work and support their family and build a life.”

People of all ages including children joined the chanting crowd, including 73-year-old Jose Peto, from Southend-on-Sea. She said: “Refugees are the same as everybody. We are bombing their countries, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, and refusing to take them is criminal.”

Meanwhile Daniel Harris from London was taking part in the march despite being on crutches due to a torn Achilles tendon. The 35-year-old said he wanted to “show his solidarity” and that the “government is not doing enough”.

“With more education, people would realise this is a humanitarian issue and not an economic one. It is really disgusting that not enough is being done,” he added.

Organisers said they estimated about 10,000 people had attended the march and rally this year.