RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: What if the small boats were going the other way?
During a debate about illegal migration on Nick Ferrari’s excellent LBC breakfast show this week, a caller wondered: What if the small boats were going the other way?
Sadly, there wasn’t time to pursue this line of inquiry before the ad break, or the news, or latest travel update, or whatever came next.
Most listeners may have come away with the impression that the call was tongue-in-cheek. But it got me thinking: what if Dan from Dartford wasn’t joking? What if Britain started shipping tens of thousands of migrants across the Channel to France?
Let’s assume, for instance, that the EU suddenly closed its external borders to migrants crossing the Med illegally, backed by naval and military force? That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Already, a number of countries have reimposed internal border controls in defiance of the Schengen agreement, which is supposed to guarantee free movement.
Hungary has even erected a Trump-style fence topped with razor wire to stop migrants entering through the back door from Serbia.
What if Britain started shipping tens of thousands of migrants across the Channel to France? (File Image)
What if the boats were going the other way? Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen. Pictured: Padstow
Imagine what would happen if they loaded them into dinghies and landed them on beaches on the Isle of Wight and from the multi-millionaire’s playground of Sandbanks (pictured), in Poole, to Rick Stein’s Padstow
The people smugglers would have to find new routes to mainland Europe for those determined to seek asylum in, say, France, Holland or Germany (File Image)
Across the Continent, Right-wing parties are in the ascendent as voters kick back against years of unfettered, culturally transformative immigration from Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
It’s not inconceivable that before long the drawbridge will be pulled up permanently.
The people smugglers would have to find new routes to mainland Europe for those determined to seek asylum in, say, France, Holland or Germany.
Imagine what would happen if they began chartering cruise liners and ferries in North Africa and packed them with migrants, before heading out to sea through the Med, bound for British waters.
Then, once off the South Coast, they loaded them into dinghies and landed them on beaches on the Isle of Wight and from the multi-millionaire’s playground of Sandbanks, in Poole, to Rick Stein’s Padstow.
But instead of putting them up in hotels, we simply laid on a fleet of coaches and took them directly to Dover, where a flotilla of small boats awaited to transport them to France, no questions asked, complete with a British coastguard escort.
Would our legally-aided Left-wing lawyers and activist judges intervene? Would MPs rebel?
If the people smugglers continued to send thousands of migrants to Britain, bound for France, it wouldn’t be long before their ships were being blown out of the water before they reached the Strait of Gibraltar (File Image)
Would anyone try to stop them leaving? Would the Supreme Court rule that France wasn’t a safe country?
Or would that be seen as a shameful and illegal breach of their yuman rites, aimed at preventing vulnerable ‘refugees’ fleeing persecution from settling wherever they chose, rather than the first safe country in which they arrived, as specified by the Dublin Convention?
And how would the European Court of Human Rights react?
Do you imagine it would rule that the EU had acted illegally in closing the borders and order member states to accept an unlimited number of arrivals via the UK?
Even if it did, the chances of France taking a blind bit of notice of the court’s ruling would be less than zero.
Within hours of the first small boats hitting the beach at Calais, the French Navy would be blockading the Kent coast and turning back the dinghies mid-Channel.
If the people smugglers continued to send thousands of migrants to Britain, bound for France, it wouldn’t be long before their ships were being blown out of the water before they reached the Strait of Gibraltar.
Those who did make it through would pretty soon find themselves on the first plane… to Rwanda.
And does anyone seriously think that the French ruling party would be tearing itself apart over the deportation plans, like the Tories are at Westminster? Dream on.
So in answer to the question: What if the boats were going the other way? Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen.
When it comes to illegal migration between the EU and Britain, it’s always going to be a one-way street.
Tesco has recalled a range of Christmas stuffing on safety grounds.
The Food Standards Agency had advised people not to eat the supermarket’s Finest Apple and Cranberry stuffing mix ‘due to the possible presence of moths, which makes the product unsuitable for human consumption’. This is despite the fact that moths are 63 per cent protein and, therefore, may actually be good for you.
Still, who wants Christmas dinner to turn into a Bushtucker challenge?
Elsewhere, health officials are warning that the UK could become home to an invasion of Asian Tiger Mosquitoes, capable of spreading deadly dengue fever, zika virus and chikungunya — which sounds like a starter at a Thai restaurant. It’s not known whether the mozzies have entered the food chain, but for now I’d give the microwaved Singapore spicy noodles a miss.
This Christmas you’d be best advised to stick to the latest delicacy being offered by a chip shop in Spalding, Lincs… You can’t go wrong with deep-fried mince pies!
Marks & Sparks has introduced a range of pyjamas complete with pockets. A correspondent to the Daily Telegraph letters page wonders why anyone would want pockets in their jim-jams.
Simple. With half the country working from home and slobbing round in their pyjamas all day, they need somewhere to put their Hobnobs.
Why would people want pockets in their pyjamas? With half the country working from home and slobbing round in their pyjamas all day, they need somewhere to put their Hobnobs
Vegan food — just ask your dog
Last Friday, I reported that proper food, such as bangers and mash and fish’n’chips, was back on the menu as people turned their backs on trendy, overpriced ‘plant-based’ muck.
This week we learned that a vegan food company launched by Heather Mills, a former Mrs Paul McCartney, has gone into administration. VBites is the latest casualty of consumers rediscovering the joys of meat and two veg.
Over the past year, ten such companies have either gone to the wall or been forced to scale back dramatically their vegan ranges.
Nutritionists have confirmed what we carnivores have known for years. Steak, egg and chips is good for you. Nothing wrong with vegetables, but loads of those who exist on a vegan diet alone suffer protein deficiencies and report feeling tired all the time. Plus, many ‘plant-based’ products are packed full of additives.
Yet vegan and vegetarian evangelists keep trying to convert us. Another former Mrs Macca, Linda, even launched a range of meat-free pet food. On my old LWT late-night TV show, we decided to put it to the test and hired a sniffer dog to choose between Linda’s veggie dog chow and a tin of Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie.
Rover took one sniff of the vegetarian option, turned up his nose in disgust and headed for the Kate and Sidney, which he demolished in about 30 seconds.
I can’t imagine that Heather Mills will be launching a VBites For Dogs any time soon.
British men are to be the first in the world to try a new, hormone-free male contraceptive pill. Let’s hope it’s more effective than one early prototype.
The idea was: you put it in your shoe and it made you limp.
Was I dreaming? The other night I could have sworn I saw an advert on TV featuring a white, middle-class, heterosexual, married couple.
I was so taken aback I can’t remember what they were advertising.
But, even though I’ve been looking out for it again, I haven’t seen it since.
So either I imagined it, or it’s been pulled on the orders of Ofcom and the agency responsible is being prosecuted for hate crime.
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