Peter Hitchens
Whose fault is
it that so many of our fellow creatures have drowned in the Mediterranean on
the way to Britain? Whose fault will it be when many more do so, crying out for
help that will not come, in the future?
As usual, I first wrote about this subject long before it was fashionable to do so.
The great migration of the poor and desperate towards the rich north is one of the most troubling and frightening things happening in the world today.
If all those who wanted to enter the rich world managed to do so, they would destroy the thing they sought.
We cannot let them all in. If we did, our economy and our society would collapse under the strain, and so would most of civilisation.
So only the stupid and self-righteous – usually people who live far from the areas where mass immigration has changed our country – can pretend that border controls are somehow wicked.
The only real question is how strict they should be.
One thing is quite certain. Completely avoidable actions have made this crisis much worse.
Surrendering our border control to the EU was one. Destroying parental authority and wrecking our state schools was another.
By making so many of our young people unemployable, we created huge numbers of jobs for hungry, self-disciplined migrants.
But in many ways the worst action of all was the unforgivably stupid decision by David Cameron and others to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi’s state in Libya.
I am still amazed that this blunder did not destroy Mr Cameron, as it should have done.
Like all shallow modern politicians, he wanted a cheap and victorious war to make him seem more important than he is.
Libya and its people were the unlucky victims of his childish vanity.
Not only did this bird-brained action turn Libya into a hideous, bloody chaos without hope, it removed the single most important barrier between Europe and the Third World.
Without Gaddafi’s stringent control of his coastline, the economic refugees of the whole of Africa and much of the Middle East (many of them fleeing wars and conflicts begun or encouraged by us) can clamber into coffin ships and set out across the Mediterranean.
Their normal lives are so terrible that the danger of death seems worth it to them.
Their poverty is so great that our threadbare welfare state glitters on the horizon like a mythical city of gold and jewels.
As long as they think they can get here, they will risk death. And those who have failed to discourage them in their crazy quest will be to blame for those deaths.
It is as simple as that.
Liberal vanity kills and goes on killing.
And it is all the worse because the culprits continue to have such high opinions of themselves.
As usual, I first wrote about this subject long before it was fashionable to do so.
The great migration of the poor and desperate towards the rich north is one of the most troubling and frightening things happening in the world today.
If all those who wanted to enter the rich world managed to do so, they would destroy the thing they sought.
We cannot let them all in. If we did, our economy and our society would collapse under the strain, and so would most of civilisation.
So only the stupid and self-righteous – usually people who live far from the areas where mass immigration has changed our country – can pretend that border controls are somehow wicked.
The only real question is how strict they should be.
One thing is quite certain. Completely avoidable actions have made this crisis much worse.
Surrendering our border control to the EU was one. Destroying parental authority and wrecking our state schools was another.
By making so many of our young people unemployable, we created huge numbers of jobs for hungry, self-disciplined migrants.
But in many ways the worst action of all was the unforgivably stupid decision by David Cameron and others to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi’s state in Libya.
I am still amazed that this blunder did not destroy Mr Cameron, as it should have done.
Like all shallow modern politicians, he wanted a cheap and victorious war to make him seem more important than he is.
Libya and its people were the unlucky victims of his childish vanity.
Not only did this bird-brained action turn Libya into a hideous, bloody chaos without hope, it removed the single most important barrier between Europe and the Third World.
Without Gaddafi’s stringent control of his coastline, the economic refugees of the whole of Africa and much of the Middle East (many of them fleeing wars and conflicts begun or encouraged by us) can clamber into coffin ships and set out across the Mediterranean.
Their normal lives are so terrible that the danger of death seems worth it to them.
Their poverty is so great that our threadbare welfare state glitters on the horizon like a mythical city of gold and jewels.
As long as they think they can get here, they will risk death. And those who have failed to discourage them in their crazy quest will be to blame for those deaths.
It is as simple as that.
Liberal vanity kills and goes on killing.
And it is all the worse because the culprits continue to have such high opinions of themselves.
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