It Is Time That We Finally Accepted That We, As A Nation, Have A Responsibility For Migrant Deaths

28/10/2020

The weather we have been having is such that many of us wouldn't want to venture out for a walk, and virtually no-one would want to jump on a nice yacht and go sailing.

So, imagine what it must take to drive a young family to take to the water in a craft that was not designed to make a crossing from France to the UK at any time; let alone in such horrendous conditions.

The people fleeing war zones or oppressive regimes are not our enemies.

'They' are not coming here to harm anyone; to steal from you, to hurt you or your loved ones.

Obviously, there may be one or two that might seek to do harm.

However, to suggest that immigrants are only coming to the UK to wreak havoc is xenophobic and incredibly repellent.

There really seems no more reason to target such hate on those escaping horrors that most of us could not imagine, than there would be for suggesting we should despise newborn children because some of them might turn out to be unpleasant adolescents, or vile adults.

The prejudice shown against immigrants is not born out of logic. In simplistic terms, there are two types of people who fail to show sympathy for the immigrants risking their lives to seek a better future:

• there are those who are simply racist bigots and who, mistakenly, believe that they are somehow better than others simply because of where they happen to have been born; and

• there are those who are being mislead by others and taught to hate. These people are not necessarily racist or unfeeling. They would, in normal circumstances, be compassionate and might even be charitable.

The current situation, where criminals profit from facilitating risky journeys for these innocents, must not be allowed to continue. Why force these poor souls to go through this?

There must be a way of establishing triage centres and assessing applications for asylum, so that we can stop the evil people smugglers from placing them at such extreme and unnecessary risk.

I'm not suggesting that this will be easy.

But, it is something we surely have to do.

I, quite frankly, am ashamed of the fact that we are not doing more to help there people.