Friday 4th September

This has been going on for some time now and there seems little hope of resolution any time soon.  Europe’s borders are proving more porous than we thought.  Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people, some bombed out of their homes (maybe by us) and many others from war-torn or extremely poverty-stricken parts of Africa are desperate enough to pay human traffic smugglers vast sums and risk their lives to get here.  And you cannot help but feel for them, many are women and children, who have nothing while we have so much.

But of course the dilemma facing Western Governments is that any act of compassion, any mercy shown to these poor people will only encourage even more to seek shelter on our shores.  And it gets more complicated as some European countries are closer to either the conflict zones, or like Italy and Greece have outlying islands in the Mediterranean quite close to Arab North Africa.  And these countries are bearing the brunt, financially and actually in temporarily trying to both stop the flow, rescue the drowning and process the unfortunates, while our Government blithely says the answer is not to take in more Asylum seekers.  Well, we know that Mr. Cameron.  But what else can you do?  And of course the British public were so concerned about Immigration that four million of them voted for UKIP a few short months ago.  Although I do believe that the tide may be turning.  People did not flock to the Tories with any great enthusiasm but because they had lost trust and hope in Labour being any different.  Now, with Jeremy Corbyn shaking up the Labour Party, and the SNP led by a Socialist sounding Nicola Sturgeon, maybe things are beginning to change.  Compassion may be on the rise.  Also the realization that not only did we largely cause the problem in the first place (thank-you Mr. Blair) but that simply bombing ISIS and incidentally killing and displacing thousands more is not the answer.  Not that the answer is easy, but we are humans first and foremost, and purport to be Christian too.  “Love thy neighbor” is a Christian message that seems to have got lost of late.  We need the politicians of Europe to step up to the plate and provide real help and assistance to these people.  And strangely we have been here before.  When the Jews were being persecuted in Germany thousands found shelter here and contributed to our National well-being, as did many Nigerians during the Biafra war, as did many Asians out of Uganda and as did many Bangladeshis when that country was at war.  Maybe selfishness and greed are beginning to have had their day, and sharing and caring are coming back into fashion.  Let us hope so.  Any bets on when Mr. Cameron will start changing his message….