The reason why Britain has been left playing a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ on migration - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Peter Packham, Chair, Leeds for Europe, Roundhay, Leeds.
Much of your Comment piece on September 8 ('Small boat protests are not the answer') about the need for the whole of Europe to work together to tackle the migrant crisis made perfect sense. But part of your conclusion could only have been written in today’s Brexit Britain: “The sooner Europe realises that collective action is needed, the more likely the whole of the subcontinent is to get to grips with it.”
Much of Europe, by which I mean the European Union, has acknowledged this already and acted. The EU's comprehensive Migration and Asylum Pact was introduced because 27 neighbouring nations understand that border management demands collective action. It is only in Britain that reactionary voices still cling to the fantasy that it is possible for an island to isolate itself from global forces in the 21st century.
It was this pact that Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey proposed that Britain should join (Davey: Join EU pact to aid return of Channel migrants, The Yorkshire Post, August 19).
By choosing to sever access to European biometric databases and tearing up our returns agreements, Brexit removed the tools necessary to “get a grip”. We are now reduced to playing a hopeless game of migration ‘whack-a-mole’ as criminal smuggling gangs simply shift their routes along the coast.
Just as isolationism will not solve the crisis, neither will ineffectual posing at our ports. Dressing up like bank robbers to ‘protest’ achieves nothing. Your editorial rightly condemned the masked demonstrators causing disruption and intimidating the public - just about the most un-British spectacle imaginable. In this country, we have a long, proud tradition of open and peaceful democratic demonstration.
Agitators pull on balaclavas for one of two reasons: to deliberately intimidate their fellow citizens, or out of acute embarrassment at their own shameful conduct.
One has to suspect that certain populist figures in British politics never genuinely want this crisis resolved; the ongoing chaos is simply too lucrative for their political grifting. See how they react negatively when told small boat numbers are coming down.
If we truly want secure borders and an end to smuggling, we must forget isolationism, call out grifters and racists exploiting this issue, and rebuild practical security cooperation with our European neighbours.