It is especially when you see the smiling face of a little kid who drowned yesterday in the channel that your heart melts. Or it should. Some of those on twitter appear to have no hearts while, for others, the important matter at hand seems to be weaponizing the deaths and playing the blame game. It is the fault of the Tories, or Labour or the Frogs and little Macron.
For those on the right it seems to be to blame Macron and the Frogs for not making more of an effort to stop migrants fleeing a land where they face no threat (France) to make the perilous journey to the UK. Some of the more moderate folks on the right talk of how we must co-operate with our friends across Europe to stop the trafficking.
Those on the left blame the evil Tories for not making migration easier. There was a survey out from Gallop the other day which asked would be migrants where they wanted to end up. Extrapolating this 52,000 survey to all those around the world likely to move would see 34 million folks landing in Britain. Those who say entry must be made safe and easy have not really thought this through.
So why do I blame Boris? The idea that Priti Patel anyone can stop trafficking by criminals is laughable. Prohibition never works be it in booze, drugs or ferrying folk across borders. Folks like Priti Useless like to say they will clamp down on illegal immigrants and people smugglers just like they will fight the ”war on drugs” because voters like to hear those messages even if, in their heart of hearts, they know it is all so much hoo-hah.
The boat folks in the channel cannot be stopped as this is not a matter of ”push.” Whatever Priti says, the criminals will try to get them across the channel and some will get through. Like importing heroin, people smuggling is a cracking business where profits are sky high. Criminals will always do it if there is a demand – a “pull.”
And that demand comes from the fact that folks want to come to Britain where they will initially be put up in luxury hotels and offered Domino’s Pizza and a new smart phone to replace the ones that they chucked, with their passports, into the sea. Thereafter Britain offers amore generous welfare system than, say, France which is where the migrants are “fleeing” from. And Britain deports barely no migrants even if they have lost any legal right to stay here and are born again Christian/ knife wielding maniacs/ wannabee Islamic suicide bombers.
Boris Johnson and his government could change that. Were migrants to be put up in army camps, whatever woolly judges say, and offered sod all benefits, those genuinely fleeing persecution in France would think it still a price worth paying. And those who fail to show they are fleeing persecution should be picked up fromthe secure camp and deported at once. If folks were told that this reception is what Britain would offer the channel crossings would dry up very quickly.
It is the failure of Boris to accept this but rather to, like Priti, posture with meaningless promises about stopping an “evil trade”, which is why he is to blame for the 31 deaths. But then again his approach is the same as almost the entire political and media class including Nigel Farage, so the cowardice is a collective one.