REFUGEE rights groups have condemned Tory MPs for rejecting an EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) commitment to reunite lone asylum-seeking children with relatives in Britain after Brexit.

MPs rejected the amendment on Wednesday before voting yesterday by 330 to 231 in favour of the Bill, meaning Britain will leave the EU on January 31.

Migrant Voice described the vote of all 348 Tory MPs against Lord Dubs’s amendment to the WAB as “indefensible” and “shameful.”

Lord Dubs – who fled the nazis as a child on the Kindertransport – said the government’s decision “will be challenged in the Lords.”

It comes after he and Labour leadership hopeful Sir Keir Starmer wrote to Tory MPs to urge them “to take a moral stance” by voting for his amendment on Wednesday.

PM Boris Johnson made a U-turn on his previous commitment to child refugees after winning a Commons majority of 80 in last month’s general election.

A Help Refugees spokesperson said: “This leaves children with no options but to turn to smugglers and take dangerous routes. This is a betrayal of our duty to protect some of the most vulnerable people in Europe.”

International Rescue Committee UK tweeted: “Refugee children are currently living alone, in appalling and overcrowded conditions on the Greek islands, without their family and without a future. 

“The need for the UK to offer sanctuary for these children has never been more urgent.”

Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay claimed that it is not necessary for the commitment to refugee children to be in the WAB.

Tory MP Maria Caulfield insisted that the rights will be “secured in the immigration Bill,” adding that the WAB is “solely about Brexit.”