Talk of ‘legal migration’ is a fig leaf to hide our shame

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A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover by the RNLI following a small boat incident in the Channel on Thursday (PA)

Even before the body count was confirmed in the latest Channel migrant tragedy, politicians, including our vile home secretary, and pundits were singing the same old tune about “legal routes” and the evil of people traffickers. Well, yes we know all that.

What we need to face up to is that there is, in reality, no such thing as a legal safe route in many circumstances. Our laws and systems are out of date – our compassion is worn thin by the friction of jingoism.

Take for example the fact that there are around a billion climate refugees around the globe. Rules for potential refugees originally established in the 1950s have never been updated to include them – although that position is beginning to shift. I could go on about the way the UK and US have destabilised and exploited many of the countries these folk flee – but you’d need to have been living under a rock not to know that.