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Bill Carmichael: We're a magnet for migrants
NO sooner had the French destroyed a squalid campsite of immigrants seeking entry into Britain earlier this week than several others sprang up in its wake.
Farewell the Jungle; hello the Wilderness, as one of the new settlements in Calais was immediately dubbed.
Clearly this problem isn't going away so long as the UK remains a magnet for economic migrants from all over the globe.
They will pay almost any price to people traffickers; endure filth, squalor and disease in the French camps; risk virtually any danger by clinging to the underside of lorries – all in order to gain entry to the promised land of the UK.
We are told it is because these people are poor – although many of them manage to find 9,000 to pay the traffickers to smuggle them into France.
And if you are unlucky enough to be born in a Middle Eastern slum, the prospect of living in a democratic country in the West is understandably a desirable goal.
But neither poverty nor a desire for freedom explain why the migrants elevate the UK above all our European neighbours.
This week, erudite commentators have expended thousands of words attempting to explain the attraction and most seem to have come to the conclusion that it is almost impossibly complex.
It isn't. It couldn't be simpler; so simple in fact that it can be articulated in just a few words by Afridi Kahn, a migrant quoted in newspapers this week after he was evicted from the Calais camp: "In Britain you get a solicitor, pocket money, good accommodation, your health is taken care of. People have rights in Britain. In France you get nothing."
Got that? Get into to Britain and you'll get free housing, legal advice, food, education, health care and cash in hand – you'll never have to work again. This concept may be far too complicated for highly-educated politicians and media commentators in the UK to grasp, but in the slums of Kabul and Baghdad it is understood perfectly well.
And let us get the terminology right. These people are not refugees.
They can't be described as asylum seekers because they have never asked for asylum.
This week those rounded up at the Jungle were given a choice – return to Afghanistan with 1,700 in your pocket (partially funded by British taxpayers), or claim asylum in France.
The vast majority refused both and instead went back onto the streets to start again their attempts to get into the UK.
If these were genuine refugees fleeing persecution they would surely claim asylum in the first free country they escaped to. But in many cases these migrants have travelled across Turkey, Greece and Italy before spending many months in France – all without asking for refugee status.
Once in Britain, of course, they will claim asylum. Among the other benefits our country offers is the fact that you are far more likely to be granted asylum in the first place, and, even if you are refused, there is virtually no chance of deportation – unlike our European neighbours.
Since 1997 Labour's "open doors" policy has made Britain a soft touch for any economic migrant, jihadi or common or garden benefits bandit from the four corners of the earth.
The chaos in Calais is just one result of this disastrous dereliction of duty.
Carry on, Dick
Common sense has prevailed in Flintshire where Spotted Dick has made a triumphant return to the council canteen's menu.
Earlier this month the traditional pudding was banned to spare the blushes of the catering ladies and replaced, hilariously, with Spotted Richard.
Widespread derision forced council bosses into a U-turn, but then it was revealed the whole furore was sparked by the "childish comments of one regular customer". Come on Flintshire dinner ladies! Doesn't that man deserve a dunking in a bath of cold custard?
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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