It is important to note that the migrants are not seeking to enter Britain to claim benefits (Report, 30 July): migrants can access benefits in France more easily and the British Red Cross points out that migrants want to enter Britain as they already speak English and think it will be easier to find work. Those advocating tougher punishments for migrants should remember what they have already risked to reach Calais. About half of those seeking to cross the Mediterranean in 2014 were Syrian (and fleeing a brutal civil war) or Eritrean (and escaping a regime so oppressive it’s nicknamed the “North Korea of Africa”), meaning they were willing to take extraordinary risks to escape. The EU’s Operation Triton is far less comprehensive than Italy’s previous Mare Nostrum rescue operation, drastically increasing the risk posed to migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, even as the crossing has become more perilous, the numbers attempting it have surged. Even if they reach Calais, any attempt to cross the Channel is a gamble: in the last month alone, nine people have been killed trying. With migrants willing to take such risks, it is difficult for David Cameron’s government to dissuade them any further.
Addressing such problems is far beyond Britain, and urgently requires a multinational response. The migrants are clearly desperate, as demonstrated by the risks they are willing to take. Rather than brutalising them, a development-orientated approach is needed. Encouraging growth and stability in the Middle East and Africa is far more effective and moral than merely allowing migrants to die. Aiding them to live stable and prosperous lives in their home countries is far more humane and recognises their humanity and worth.
Niall McNelis
Galway, Ireland
• Daniel Trilling (Europe could solve the migrant crisis – if it wanted, 31 July) is right to remind people that the continent of Europe does indeed have the resources to help “the small proportion of the world’s refugees (who) reach the continent”. That Cameron and co have neither the courage nor the will to “do unto others” (a British value, perhaps?) is deeply distressing and repugnant. As for “a swarm of people”, Mr Cameron’s education and reading should have alerted him to the use of the word “swarm” by antisemites over many centuries, none more venomously than by Nazis of the past and the present: “a swarm of Jews” or “swarms of Jews” recur with hideous regularity in the murderous voices of the worst of humanity. No doubt Mr Cameron didn’t have Nazi Jew-haters in mind, but careless words cost lives.
Bruce Ross-Smith
Oxford
• A concerted pan-European effort could do much to alleviate the problem which is at least partly a creation of the military adventurism of the western powers.
There are still parts of Europe (and of course the US) that are relatively underpopulated – the Highlands and islands of Scotland, for example. Instead of subjecting migrants to the present situation, which Trilling correctly describes as a “lottery”, surely a planned relocation to the relatively uninhabited areas of Europe would be a better practical solution. If provided with small amounts of capital (land on a lease, building materials and tools), migrants could utilise their own labour to build new communities of villages. Farming and selling of the skills they bring could generate an income for them. Most importantly, their lives would have an element of peaceful stability governed by law and not terror. In time, these communities could be open to others – both new migrants and domestic citizens – to relocate to if they wish.
Professor Monojit Chatterji
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
• Daniel Trilling lays into the EU for failing to act collectively over the migrants issue. His remedy – an integrated migration and asylum policy – is consistent with the EU accord on the free movement of people. Just as a common currency implies a political union, so the same can be said of the free movement accord.
We now know you can reside anywhere within the EU by purchasing a passport from the Maltese government. We also know that the route into the EU for Moldovans is an easily acquired Romanian passport. Ditto for Bosnian Croats, via Zagreb. Then there is the amnesty granted by the Spanish government to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, the first step towards Spanish citizenship and the right to EU-wide residence. Spain also freely hands out citizenship to Latin Americans. Then there are the EU states most geographically exposed to illegal immigrants. They demand EU-wide burden-sharing.
It’s time for EU member states to choose how to regulate immigration. Either opt out of the free movement accord, which probably means leaving the EU, or seek an EU policy on non-EU immigrants, asylum seekers, amnesties and passport policy. It’s either a lot looser or ever closer.
Yugo Kovach
Winterborne Houghton, Dorset
• Britain has one future and one current problem threatening growth. In future we face more and more pensioners without enough people of working age to support them. Today the recovery is held up by a shortage of skilled labour. At Calais a “swarm” of people of working age have assembled. Many seem to have good skills and all have valuable qualities of enterprise and courage. I am not quite sure how to finish this letter.
Derek Cole
Newbury, Berkshire
• If, after the referendum, the UK decides to leave the EU then the border arrangements with France would need to be changed. It is likely that the present arrangement, whereby UK immigration control operates partly on the French side (Calais) would cease and the French authorities would allow people wishing to enter the UK to proceed across the Channel. The migrants would then have to be held and processed in Kent or nearby. Happy days for suppliers of security fencing!
Rod Logan
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
• I am going to say something that is going to upset a lot of my fellow Guardian readers but it has to be said. The only solution to Calais and the general asylum problem is to abrogate our international agreements that offer asylum. 99% of applicants are economic migrants. In a world of 7 billion people, the pool of potential applicants is, for all practical purposes, infinite. Despite their abject treatment in refugee centres, this country is still regarded as relatively tolerant and generous and they will keep coming. As an illustration of how absurd the system is, I know some Kurds both in Liverpool and London who speak some Greek. Why? Because they spent several years working in Greece before they decided to move on and seek asylum as “political refugees”. My fellow readers may huff and puff at this but the end of the current asylum-seeking procedures is a political and logistical inevitability.
Alan Sharples
Liverpool
• It is specific issues that put political rhetoric to the test. Labour party members and supporters need to know how Jeremy Corbyn and the other contenders for the leadership would respond to the chaos in Calais.
Ivor Morgan
Lincoln
• The Refugee Council rightly described David Cameron’s “swarm of people” remark as “awful, de-humanising language from a world leader”. A prime minister using such irresponsible and odious language about desperate people deserves widespread criticism.
This arrogant Tory government is still clinging to the ridiculous notion that it is the “pull factor” that is responsible for the crisis, and that the people must be sent back. Surely there is someone in government who has read the report on Eritrea by the UN human rights council, which concluded that the Afwerki regime was committing such “gross human-rights violations” that they constituted “crimes against humanity”? Is it surprising, then, that hundreds of thousands of Eritreans are joining the refugees from the Middle East’s wars in their quest for safety in the UK and EU countries? The idea of sending people back to countries where bombings, executions and torture are rife should never be on the table. Why isn’t a summit meeting of European leaders being called this weekend to deal with the refugee problem, as happened over what was clearly deemed far more important, Greece’s financial troubles? Perhaps more pertinently, why isn’t the Guardian demanding one now, instead of waiting until the inevitable catastrophe happens at Calais?
Bernie Evans
Liverpool
• It’s disgraceful that our political leaders – in the UK and in Europe – cannot seem to agree on a humane solution to address the “migrants crisis” in Calais.
For starters, the common labelling of the many vulnerable people in Calais as “illegal migrants” is contributing to the clouding of the often terrifying circumstances they come from. We know that most of the people are escaping horrific conflicts from countries like Syria, Somalia and Eritrea; and are hardly looking for a better-paying job or economic benefits. Most are in fact refugees fleeing for their lives to avoid threats and persecution and have a legal right to seek asylum.
The UK government and its European counterparts have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that people seeking asylum attain protection of their rights regardless of their country of origin.
We would like to see more political courage and foresight in resolving this crisis and its many root causes.
Johan Eldebo
Senior humanitarian policy adviser, World Vision UK
• President Obama was right to tell the African leaders about the “cancer of corruption” and to say that “when a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife” (Barack Obama: Africa’s presidents-for-life are risk to democratic progress, 28 July).
However, he should have also told them that there was no better evidence of instability and strife in Africa than the thousands of African men, women and children – from the oil-rich Nigeria to the dirt-poor Eritrea – who are risking their lives every day, and fleeing the continent in search of a better life in Europe. More than 5,000 of them have perished in the Mediterranean in the last year alone, and many more are waiting in Libya to make the risky journey.
In Calais, thousands of African migrants have set up a temporary home in the “Jungle” complete with churches, restaurants and shops as they wait to jump into lorries coming to the UK.
As the population, currently standing at 1 billion, continues to increase by some 3% every year, thus putting more pressure on the limited land, jobs and access of health and education, more African migrants will be forced to flee towards Europe rather than wait for a slow and painful death from starvation, preventable diseases and police brutality.
Against this background, it would be an exercise in futility to try to end the crisis by bombing the smugglers, and return the migrants to their home countries or some holding centre in north Africa. Obama should seriously consider devoting his time to tackling the root causes of African migrants – which are corruption, bad governance and population explosion – when he leaves office next year.
Sam Akaki
Director, Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (Dipra)
• A man dies in the Channel tunnel and David Cameron is quick to express his sympathies – for stranded holidaymakers. Is further comment needed?
Robert Snell
Brighton
• Mrs Thatcher will be turning in her grave at the failure of Mr Cameron to remember that when a modern Tory prime minister discusses migrants the word to use is not “swarm” but “swamp”.
Keith Flett
London
