Bob Geldof: The refugee crisis is 'a f*cking disgrace'

Bob Geldof says he is ashamed of Europe's handling of the refugee crisis and he has offered to take in four families to assist in the growing crisis.

Bob Geldof: The refugee crisis is 'a f*cking disgrace'

Bob Geldof says he is ashamed of Europe's handling of the refugee crisis and he has offered to take in four families to assist in the growing crisis.

The singer told Dave Fanning on RTE Radio 1 that that he is willing to accept four families into his homes in the UK to try to ease "this f***ing disgrace. This absolute, sickening disgrace".

"I'm prepared," he says. "I'm lucky, I've a place in Kent and a flat in London - me and [partner] Jeanne would be prepared to take three families immediately in our place in Kent and a family in our flat in London, immediately, and put them up until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future."

The prolific aid campaigner says he is ashamed of the West's response to the crisis.

"I look at it with profound shame. It is a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be," he says.

"We are in a moment that will be discussed and impacted upon in 300 years time, a fundamental shift in the way the world has worked for the last, say, 600 years."

He blames human greed and a lack of new politics for the escalating crisis.

"Power has been sucked out of the West and moved East. Technology once it met money and was multiplied by human greed collapsed the world economy.

"If there's a new economy there needs to be a new politics. There isn't and it's that failure of new politics that has led to this f***ing disgrace. This absolute, sickening disgrace.

"I cannot stand what is happening. I cannot stand what it does to us.

"The bollocks we talk about, our values, are complete nonsense. Once it comes home to roost we deny those values. We betray ourselves. But those values are correct. And it happens time and time and time again.

"We are better than this, we genuinely are."

Geldof understands David Cameron's stance, but believes immediate action is called for.

"I do understand when Cameron says the root cause needs to be addressed. Yes it must, but we are in a period of fundamental shift," he says.

"When people are poor they move. I am an economic migrant, Britain accepted me and let me get on with it. This is happening again, except it's people fleeing war, not famine or economic hardship."

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