If we sunk boats like these then maybe they would not keep coming?

There are very few winners when it comes to the Mediterranean ‘refugee’ crisis, that is apart from the people traffickers. The Italian government isn’t winning because they have to deal with the swarm of boats aiming for Italy, and neither are the minority of decent individuals fleeing oppression on these vessels, which are mostly filled with moochers, criminals or fools who think the streets of European cities are, if not paved with gold, ones where consumer goods can be picked up for free on street corners. It also needs to be stated that many of the communities who are being forced to house the ‘refugees’ are not winning, as these ‘refugees’ have brought blight, danger and crime, including sex-crime, to too many of the places where they have been imposed.

Any policy that encourages these boats to cross the Med will have no beneficiary, other than the people traffickers. Policies such as rescuing ‘refugees’ and giving them citizenship of European countries or housing them on offshore islands, are only encouraging traffickers to make the crossing with their lucrative human cargo. The Australian government recognised the ‘pull’ factor of citizenship of Australia or the chance of being given temporary leave to remain in the country and changed their entire ‘refugee’ boat policy. The Australians refused to give citizenship or right to remain on Australian soil to anybody who arrived illegally and publicised this new policy very widely. This has had the effect of reducing the number of ‘refugee’ boats aiming for Australia. Those that do make the crossing are placed in holding centres offshore, with the ultimate aim if possible to send them back from whence they came.

It is now time for European nations to take similar action against the ‘refugee’ boats crossing the Med. There should be no rescue attempts made of the traffickers boats that get into difficulty, there should be no offers of citizenship or leave to remain or politicians making mealy-mouthed descriptions of these moochers as ‘new Europeans’. Also there needs to be a proper interdiction of the trafficking vessels, up to and including sinking them with naval gunfire when they are spotted attempting to make the crossing. This may sound cruel and some may even say that this it is indeed cruel, but as stated earlier there are no winners from the current policy, other than the people traffickers themselves. If we Europeans wish to stop having to accept these unwanted cargoes of criminals, rapists, welfare moochers and more than likely jihadists as well, then harsh action needs to be taken. Those who jump up and say it’s cruel to fire on or turn back these boats should ask themselves a big question and that is: Is sinking these ‘refugee’ boats more cruel than continuing to unwittingly assist the people traffickers or to dump imported criminals onto communities that didn’t ask for them or don’t approve of having to house them?

Although it’s right to be sympathetic to those who are genuinely fleeing oppression, many of those making the Med crossing from Libya are not in this category. They are merely economic migrants or criminals or even jihadists, who are using the ‘refugee’ boats to illegally enter Europe and thereby threaten us all.

It’s now time for the armed forces of Europe to start to protect the European citizens who they are paid to protect. This could be done by showing these people traffickers the business end of a gun, sinking their boats or turning them back, rather than sending out lifeboats to pick up their unfortunate human cargoes and bringing them to Europe.

The current policy cannot work, will not work and is not working. Shooting the boats out of the water or turning them back is about the only thing that will discourage the people traffickers from their business, because at present the risks for them do not outweigh the benefits for them. Only when the risks of crossing the Med are not profitable will these boats stop. Although prosecuting the traffickers may be helpful there are so many of them that treating it as a mere criminal problem may not be enough, the people trafficking game must be made so dangerous for the traffickers that the traffickers give up, and that cannot solely be a judicial matter, it may take real military action. Maybe the time has arrived where we have to be cruel in the short term in order to be kind in the longer term, both to existing European citizens and to those who are being exploited by the people traffickers.