The news that over 300 more migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in a series of shipwrecks elicited two feelings from me when I heard of it. The first thought I had was the ‘security thought’, which is that it represents 340 less potential dole bludgers, jihadis, rapists etc who were now in Davy Jones Locker and not walking our streets doing harm to our nations and our peoples. The other thought I had was what I describe as the humanitarian thought which is that 340 humans are dead who should not have died and more importantly would not have died had the EU had a better policy than fishing out migrants from the Med.
If the EU nations had had a robust policy of interdiction of these migrant boats and a policy of forcible return to the North African coast of the migrants then it would have dissuaded migrants from attempting the crossing. Yes such a policy, which should have in extremis included using live munitions on the boats, and would have caused some deaths, but it would have resulted in a lot less deaths by drowning than we have seen so far.
The policy of picking up migrants whilst at sea and bringing the to Europe is a bad policy all round. It’s bad for the people and nations of Europe because it facilitates the import of people whom the continent would be better off without. It’s also a policy that is bad for the migrants as it encourages them to attempt the crossing. After all they only have to get part of the way and the Italians or the Royal Navy will pick them up and ferry them to the mainland of Europe. The policy of picking up migrants and not turning back the boats is costing hundreds of lives yet despite that death toll the EU nations continue on with their disastrous policy of rescuing these migrants, which merely has the effect of encouraging more to try the crossing.
Here’s an excerpt from the Brietbart news website on the counterproductive policy of ferrying migrants to Europe.
Brietbart said:
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that 340 migrants have drowned in four major shipwrecks over the course of the week, bringing the reported total for November so far to 546. This compares with 141 for the entire month in 2015 and 22 in 2014.
All in all, the IOM puts the death toll for 2016 at over 4,600 so far, making it the deadliest year on record already, with several bitter winter weeks still ahead.
These unprecedented numbers have been realised despite an expensive and controversial deal between Turkey and the EU on stemming the flow of illegal immigration, which looks set to unravel now that a crackdown on political opponents by the Turkish premier has (seemingly) killed plans for Turkish citizens to be given visa-free access to the Schengen Area.
The IOM lists the top eight countries of origin for migrants arriving in Europe as Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Somalia and Mali – which should come as shock to members of the public who have been led to believe that most migrants come from war-torn countries in the Middle East.”
The Med migrant disaster could have been easily prevented by the EU nations implementing a similar policy to that of Australia, which is to turn round these boats and to not give asylum to those who arrive in this manner. The Australian policy has prevented the sort of mass deaths of the sort we are seeing occurring in the Mediterranean Sea. Turning the boats around or interdicting them with force of arms may, even if it caused some deaths, would have prevented so many hundreds if not thousands more deaths.
At heart the crux of the problem is as Brietartsaid the EU’s outdated policy on asylum which is you are accepted as an asylum seeker the moment you set foot on EU soil.
Brietbart added:
The migrant crisis was originally triggered by the European Union implementing outmoded asylum rules which allow anyone able to reach EU soil or waters to make a claim. This resulted in large numbers of migrants attempting to reach EU territory, first via the relatively safe overland routes to the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
When Brussels sealed off this route by building barbed wire fortifications around the towns and paying brutal North African police forces to keep migrants away from them, smuggler-boats became the best viable option.
If the EU needs to stop this invasion and stop the number of drownings then they must deal urgently with the asylum rules which are a pull factor for migrants. The knowledge that all one needs to do is enter EU waters or put one foot on EU soil and a world of welfare opens up for you is a major driver for these migrant crossings.
These outmoded and counterproductive asylum rules were put in place when the continent faced different challenges and when the continent was divided into a free Western bloc and an un-free Soviet controlled bloc in the East. Rules stating that one foot on Western soil made you an asylum seeker may have been appropriate for those attempting to flee East Berlin but are not fit for purpose today. The EU asylum rules along with the UN charter of human rights and the Statelessness Convention were all brought in to deal with problems and an international political situation that are radically different to those of the current era. International laws forbidding making people stateless or for not discriminating against stateless persons and much of the human rights edifice were created in the shadow of the Second World War in order to put right some of the deficiencies of pre-war international law. For example: These deficiencies saw stateless Jews who had been robbed of their German citizenship by the Nazis shipped off to the death camps because no nation would take in stateless persons. However the laws made to prevent such a terrible occurrence happening again have in themselves become a bit of an obstacle to national self defence and are often being exploited by unscrupulous migrants and migrant advocates. We face a different enemy today than we did in the past and therefore we need different international agreements to deal with this enemy. Unlike the World War II and Cold War eras we are not facing lunatic murderous dictators like Hitler and Stalin, but instead a disorganised tide of often violent humanity and none of the conventions such as the Refugee Convention, the UN Human Rights convention or the Statelessness Convention are in any way adequate to deal with this problem.
Although I despise and fear the cultures from which these migrants come from and believe they should be kept out of free countries, I do not desire the deaths of these migrants, if deaths can be reasonably avoided. Therefore in order to prevent deaths and curtail this growing death toll, it’s time to turn back the migrant boats, not just for a short time, but permanently.
Link
Original story on the latest Med Migrant death toll from Brietbart
