As from 1 July, Malta’s irregular immigration problems look set to get a lot worse. We have already had a taste of this, with the hundreds of generally well-dressed young men, some sporting mobile phones, who arrived over a couple of days, this last week.
Who believes they were at sea for days? Who doesn’t believe that they are leaving Libya, and the North African coast, in bigger boats and then being dropped off just outside our waters? Then the Italian or whatever radar or satellite spots them, and asks our tiny, limited, and – we don’t say it often enough – hard-working and brave armed forces to go and rescue them.
The only reason there has not been more of an outcry is this happy obsession we all have with footie at the moment! (with apologies to the letter-writer, Tonio Privitelli from Brussels, who doesn’t like football being demoted to footie…).
Now, thanks to some amended regulations in a convention known as SOLAS (safety of life at sea), following an incident where the Australian government refused to take in 460 illegal immigrants who had been rescued by a Norwegian ship, things could turn harrowing for this tiny rock of around 350,000 people.
From now on, because we have a crazily large region around us which is ours (and from which we earn money as planes fly through), when a boat-load of irregular immigrants comes even as far away as near to Lampedusa, (as Lampedusa is within our zone), the Italian government can just send the boat here.
There are already suspicions that certain countries know exactly where these
boat people are, and are sending them or guiding them into Maltese waters.
Now they will have every right – or almost no need – to do so.
We are going to have to take thousands more in anyway. So this zone around Malta that is too large, and this amendment, is going to compound our problems even further.
I don’t agree, however, that this is, above all, a money problem – although I think Simon Busuttil and all the other MEPs are doing sterling work, trying to look after Malta’s interests in the EU. It is not mostly about getting funds to provide camps or improved services for these people. Bob Geldorf was right to say that the e2m we get is a pittance.
But if we get e20m and 5,000 immigrants, do we not still have a problem?
We have hundreds of Maltese who need services too. Sir Bob came over specifically to draw attention to our small homelessness problems, but instantly zoomed in on the irregular immigration challenge that is far, far more worrying and difficult to solve. In fact, he hardly spoke at all about homelessness, and got on to speaking about one of the biggest headaches we, and any government we have, are likely to face in the coming years.
Still, thanks again Sir Bob for saying what the extreme wing of the politically correct brigade in Malta was preventing people from saying openly. It’s not a question of numbers at demonstrations.
The absolute vast majority do not agree with nasty extremist views, but know that we cannot take in thousands of extra people, however much money we are given.
As Sir Bob said: “Malta cannot be left on its own. You have a population of 350,000
people. What happens when there are 30,000 people (illegal immigrants), which is nothing, yet it would be 30 per cent of your population?”
Sir Bob thinks this is an alarming prospect. So now we can openly say so too.
He said so, yet nobody would call the man who brought so much help to Aids-ridden Africa a racist, would they?
Like our PM, he said Europe and the world has to help Africa financially, or else wave upon wave of irregular immigrants will keep on coming into Europe, totally swamping us in the process. And he reminded us that aid to Africa from the G7 is equivalent to what Bill Gates earns in a week. The idea of vetting these illegal immigrants in camps in the North of Africa was thrown out by the EU. So we have an untenable situation and now, thanks to Sir Bob, everyone can say it openly without fear of being labelled a racist, or part of the various movements that are sprouting around us.
So whether it is thanks to Sir Bob, or the sheer numbers that invaded us last week, we now have fighting talk from Minister Frendo, who says the situation is unacceptable. But it is not just about getting money. If Europe wants to practise the tolerance it preaches, all the irregular immigrants have to be divided equally between the member states on a population and size basis. Malta will also have to help a few that way, but commensurate with our size and population numbers.
I’m not a fan of the Mintoff era, far from it. But I do wonder if a too polite approach to Brussels is going to have any effect? We need to stand up and be brazen and uncompromising. We are being taken for a ride by the otherwise lovely Italians (as long as they don’t win the World Cup) and others. Or perhaps, can we afford not to pay Sir Bob to campaign for us on our behalf? He has certainly opened up the debate, and galvanised our resolve. Can he get us some solace from SOLAS?