Migrants - 'Diversion Ahead'

In the world of cheap journalism it seems that anything goes. Katie Hopkins rockets to stardom, in terms of the number of signatures she has attracted on change.org in its petition to have her sacked after her article for the Sun newspaper. In it, she describes the desperate human beings fleeing from barbarity, conflict and extreme hardship as ‘cockroaches’. Partly as a result of this, the plight of the people she vilifies fades momentarily into the background. When it comes to possible diversions from the requirements of moral integrity, the same holds true for commercially valuable celebrities, Jeremy Clarkson being an example, although in his case, the institution got it right in the end by refusing to reinstate him as presenter of ‘Top Gear’.

In both cases, we have a kind of Barabbas situation, a helpful distraction from more profound moral questions. In the case of Katie Hopkins, the obvious one which pertains to the value of the least and the poorest of human lives and, in the case of Clarkson, whether it was worth making a fuss over the assault of a man. Had it been a woman there would have been an immediate and far greater uproar, the issue here being the assumption that men are supposed to be able to ‘deal with’ such incidents and ‘move on’.

The Katie Hopkins furore comes as a convenient distraction from the question of what the European Union should do to alleviate the plight of migrants fleeing the shores of northern Africa. It also diverts attention away from the pressing need to give Italy a practical and financial helping hand. Vague promises and patronising platitudes, along with all the sentiment and high words which obscure the inhumanity of the collective political will, simply do not help.

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the clamour and confusion surrounding the question of reinstating efficient migrant rescue (and who should administer and pay for it), the tantrums and spats between leading UK politicians continue unabated. The UK elections are degenerating into near farce which will, once more, provide lucrative copy for cheap journalism. Again, it is a convenient distraction from the real human suffering being experienced in more distant places about which scrapping politicians seem to have little to say.

So it is not surprising that, to those fleeing conflict and hardship, we appear to be washing our hands of the problem, owing to more pressing electoral concerns at home. These concerns must surely touch on the vexed question of  our own immigration policy, something which Katie Hopkins no doubt spotted and whose article was described by her newspaper, which profited richly from her remarks, as ‘brilliant’.

The problem which refuses to go away, whatever distractions may be thrown at the British electorate, is embedded somewhere in the hard core reality of the cost of taking difficult political decisions as a member of the wider political community. Some of the proposals touched upon by the European Commission might include establishing a generous but realistic quota for receiving these desperate people which could be shared across EU borders and would be mandatory. Another would be the establishment of a fund for helping Italy and Sicily in the immediate short term. These ideas are lightly touched upon in the Commission’s Ten Point Action Plan on migration, but everything remains ‘voluntary’ and therefore vague.

Vagueness and trying to please everyone all of the time leads to half baked reactive decision making, usually too late to be of any use. The hard core reality which faces us, as part of the European community (and of the human race), requires a proactive approach, rather than the ineffectual reactive handwringing that has gone on so far in regard to the problem of migrant drowning. Perhaps it is bureaucracy which is obscuring Europe’s vision, rather than plain hardness of heart. History has shown that realpolitik obscures our humanity. Are we in danger of repeating it in regard to the question of migration?