France’s former minister of foreign
affairs, Bernard Kouchner, had an article
in the Financial Times recently about Lampedusa. That’s the island in the
Mediterranean which large numbers of would be immigrants from Africa to Europe
land on, having crossed the sea in unseaworthy boats: if they don’t drown
first.
Half way through the article (at
least in the hardcopy version) and in extra bold print it says “Five hundred
million of us cannot agree to share the burden of a few thousand needy. Our
leaders lack the vision and the generosity.”
The fact that those two sentences are
in extra bold print presumably means Bernard Kouchner or the Financial Times
think the two sentences are unusually insightful.
Actually they are unusually stupid.
If it were simply a case of five
hundred million people being generous towards a “few thousand” then those five
hundred million wouldn’t hesitate would they? Not even British National Party
or France’s Front Nationale or any other so called “far right” party would
hesitate. So what’s Bernard Kouchner drivelling on about?
Well of course it’s not a case of
five hundred million being generous (or not) towards an absolutely minute
number of people (relatively speaking). What concerns the five hundred million
is that there are already about ten million Muslims and further millions of
non-Muslims from Africa, the Middle East etc. in Europe. And there are further
millions (not thousands) itching to get to Europe as well.
That’s the reason for not being
overly welcoming towards the boat people near Lampedusa. Put another way, if you think British cabinet
ministers are dumb, then fear not: French cabinet ministers are equally dumb.
We couldn’t do without immigrants?
Another equally daft pro-immigration
argument appeared in the letters column of the FT recently: it argued that if
every immigrant in the UK stopped work for a day or a week, there’d be chaos,
ergo (apparently) we need immigrants.
Yes, well if everyone with grey hair
or who was bald stopped work for a week, there’d be chaos. Which proves we need
people with grey hair or who are bald?
If all recent immigrants or all those
with grey hair left the UK and migrated to say China, there’d be some temporary
disruption because immigrants and those with grey hair tend to concentrate in
particular trades or professions or job types. So some members of the remaining
population would need to learn new skills. But once the re-skilling was
complete, everything would be just hunky dory.
In fact if there was net EMMIGRATION
from the UK of say half a million people a year, would that be a problem? I
doubt it: after a few years the UK would end up like Sweden, i.e. with a population
of about 30 million instead of 60 million. And the problem with that is?
Amazing that I need to spell out the
above blindingly obvious points, isn't it?
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