Polish PM: London terror attack is about Britain's refugee policy
It is 'impossible not to connect' terror and migration, says right-wing politician
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Your support makes all the difference.Poland’s Prime Minister has linked the Westminster attack to Europe's migration policy and claiming it was “impossible” not to connect the two issues.
“I hear in Europe very often: 'Do not connect the migration policy with terrorism,' but it is impossible not to connect them,” Beata Szydlo told the broadcaster TVN24.
It has since emerged that the attacker, Khalid Masood, was born in Kent as Adrian Russell Elms, before later changing his name.
Four people were killed and at least 50 people were injured when he ploughed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.
He then stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death outside the Houses of Parliament.
Ms Szydlo's comments came shortly after the EU's migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, on a visit to Warsaw, warned member states against failing to host refugees to help alleviate pressure on frontline states bearing the brunt of arrivals across the Mediterranean.
Poland's right-wing Eurosceptic government has refused to accept any of the 6,200 migrants allocated to it under the European Union's quota scheme that was designed to share the burden of taking in the large numbers of refugees who have come to Europe over the past two years.
“The commissioner should concentrate on what to do to avoid such acts as yesterday in London," Ms Szydlo said, adding that her country would "not succumb to blackmail such as that expressed by the commissioner.”
She said that two days after Mr Avramopoulos' visit "another terrorist attack in London occurs".
Ms Szydlo is one of a number of both British and European far right politicians to link the attack to migration policies.
French National Front leader Marine Le Pen told both BFM TV and RMC radio: "The problem we have nowadays is this form of low-cost terrorism".
She added "we must control our borders".
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage also argued that the London attacks proved Donald Trump’s strict immigration and anti-Muslim policies were needed.
“Surely this is the big takeout: when Donald Trump tries to makes America safer, when Donald Trump tries to make sure that these scenes we’ve had in Paris, Brussels and Berlin and now London aren’t repeated in America, we have people on Fifth Avenue and behind me in Westminster out on the streets protesting,” he told US broadcaster, Fox News.
"It seems to me our political leaders really ought to start saying sorry."
He argued that politicians who encouraged open immigration were responsible for the attacks.
“What these politicians have done for the last 15 years may well affect how we live in this country for the next 100 years,” he said.
Reuters contributed to this report
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