Hundreds of thousands of migrants have flooded Europe in recent years, in a perfect storm of Middle East conflict, opportunistic people smugglers, and the collapse of the collective will of Europe to police its borders, defend what it stands for, and defend its identity itself. Tragically, thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa have drowned in the Mediterranean in the attempt to seek a better life in Europe.
Although life in Europe is inarguably better than life in Africa and the Middle East, life in Europe is no picnic either. Migrants find themselves in ghettos, often unemployed and unemployable, living the same life of insecurity, violence, and religious repression from which they were trying to escape.
Apart from the awful deaths at sea of this desperate mass, the greatest symbol of this crisis, which threatens to shake Europe to its core, is the traffic jams, the chaos, the human throngs, the desperate attempts, at the risk, often fatal, to their own lives, of migrants attempting to cross through the Chunnel into England.
That these people are attempting to leave one of the most prosperous countries on the planet, and gain access to another of the most prosperous countries on the planet, solely because, (and this has been articulated explicitly,) it has better benefits and government programs for migrants, should be the one, necessary piece of evidence that the number one reason people are doing this, the number one people are enduring hell and dying by their thousands, is because Great Britain has policies which entice people to enter it illegally. It is the sole, necessary piece of evidence that these people are economic migrants, not asylum seekers. And it is the sole, necessary piece of evidence that all it will take to resolve this crisis is collective resolve on behalf of all Europe to simultaneously stop luring migrants to their deaths, by way of over-generous terms given to those who arrive illegally; and the collective resolve to police its borders, stop people from arriving by boat on its shores, and return those who do.
Australia, which has done just this, is the only Western country on the face of the planet which has been able to stop the haphazard flow of migrants to its borders. In turn, it will be able to increase the numbers of legal, official migrants it accepts, and ultimately, help more people.
Amid all of this, the British Prime Minister, in summing up the situation, has caused a controversy by referring to the unfortunate souls massing in Calais as a “swarm.” No greater symbol of the collective insanity of European elites, both political and media; no greater symbol of the reason why Europe has been completely incapable of dealing with the crisis, and looks utterly incapable of resolving it; can be found than this example of utter lunacy:
That amid the chaos, panic and death, the Prime Minister of Great Britain has caused a scandal, simply for using a word.