Migrants Crossing the Channel

It would be a pity if the UK became heartless to the plight of migrants, yet there is real public anxiety about immigration. Locally people can feel overwhelmed by the influx of a new culture, even if the overall outcome for the country is positive. The diaspora of people from poorer countries to the magnet of prosperous Europe and to its southern border, the United States, is in large part due to a combination of globalization leaving many behind and foreign wars without end. Into the deprived arena these create, has stepped a new kind of criminal. The terrorist fighter and the people trafficker.

There can be no doubt that Western economic and foreign policies bear much, if not all, responsibility for the conditions which lead to people on the edge of despair to go to any length and place their trust in anybody to help them towards something better. But to enter the picture only at the point of rescue is too late for the West. More must be done to disrupt the trafficker’s easy business model and very much more must be done to stop unseaworthy, or indeed any sort, of boats putting to sea from the coast of North Africa and more recently Northern France. That is an absolute priority. Hanging about waiting to rescue people from drowning is the very worst option. It actually make the situation worse not better.