Horror is not limited to the Left, although they do of course dominate it. Mixed in with this horror is a certain amount of hypocrisy. Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper recently called upon Britain to take 10,000 refugees. I'm as certain as I can be that Ms Cooper was one of the Labour MPs who in August 2013 voted against a Coalition government proposal to take military action to support the rebels in Syria.
The rebels were at that time, remember, dominated by moderates rather than by ISIL. I can't be the only person puzzled by the spectacle of Cooper purporting to hold the government's feet to the fire over Syrian refugees when the actions of her and her colleagues prevented the Government doing the one thing which might have reduced dramatically the possibility of this dead boy's parents having to escape the country in the first place.
Of course it's not just Syria - the chaotic space inside that country provided and still provides ISIL with the base from which its operations across the Middle East have sallied forth. And it's not just Yvette Cooper either. Someone posted on Twitter this morning a wonderful juxtaposition of Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, berating the Coalition in Parliament in 2013 for its military proposals with a picture of the same Ms Bennett yesterday holding a placard urging support for refugees. Truly these people have no shame.
And there are lots of them too. It's not just MPs. All across the media the airwaves are alive with the chirruping of the indignant, complaining about the government's failure to do more, utterly oblivious to the possibility that their own objection to military action in 2013 might have contributed to the present mess all across the south and east Mediterranean. "So of course you supported the Coalition Government in 2013 when they wanted to intervene on the side of the moderate Syrian rebels?", ask the interviewers. I'm kidding of course. The interviewers were probably against intervention too. After Iraq, isn't everyone?
The rebels were at that time, remember, dominated by moderates rather than by ISIL. I can't be the only person puzzled by the spectacle of Cooper purporting to hold the government's feet to the fire over Syrian refugees when the actions of her and her colleagues prevented the Government doing the one thing which might have reduced dramatically the possibility of this dead boy's parents having to escape the country in the first place.
Of course it's not just Syria - the chaotic space inside that country provided and still provides ISIL with the base from which its operations across the Middle East have sallied forth. And it's not just Yvette Cooper either. Someone posted on Twitter this morning a wonderful juxtaposition of Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, berating the Coalition in Parliament in 2013 for its military proposals with a picture of the same Ms Bennett yesterday holding a placard urging support for refugees. Truly these people have no shame.
And there are lots of them too. It's not just MPs. All across the media the airwaves are alive with the chirruping of the indignant, complaining about the government's failure to do more, utterly oblivious to the possibility that their own objection to military action in 2013 might have contributed to the present mess all across the south and east Mediterranean. "So of course you supported the Coalition Government in 2013 when they wanted to intervene on the side of the moderate Syrian rebels?", ask the interviewers. I'm kidding of course. The interviewers were probably against intervention too. After Iraq, isn't everyone?
But as I have long argued, it isn't enough to point out that those making an argument are unattractive hypocrites getting off on what the writer Brendan O'Neill described as "death porn". Neither can people like me say, "I told you so" or "I wouldn't have started from here". You have to show that in this particular case they are wrong, and that some other way might be better.
So let's start with the morality of it. British law requires individuals to claim asylum in the first safe place they come to. Thus the people trying to hop onto trains and lorries at Calais are by definition not refugees. They are safe from persecution in France (incidentally they are also illegal immigrants in that country; but no-one in France seems to care and neither does the media or the political class here).
It's worth pointing out too that the child whose death has caused the current furore was not in this sense a refugee either. He had fled Syria with his family and had lived in Turkey for a year. No doubt they were living in pretty rotten circumstances in Turkey, but they were not in danger of persecution. They paid people traffickers because they thought they would have less rotten circumstances in Europe.
British law exists to keep the maximum number of refugees out. It says, "If you can get here, we'll consider your application. But if you are too weak, too poor, too unlucky or too encumbered by dependents to get here, too bad".
There is nothing moral about our refugee laws then. But before we condemn them it's worth considering the practicalities. There must be millions of people across Africa generally who could in theory claim asylum in Britain. Leave aside the economic migrants, there must be millions at risk of persecution. We cannot possibly take them all. It is simply impractical. In that context it's possible to look at our laws as a genuine attempt to allow a realistic number of people into Britain, whilst preventing a flood tide that would overwhelm our ability to process, absorb and pay for them.
Comically, the Yvette Coopers and Natalie Bennetts of this world are exactly the same people who are telling us that we have a housing crisis, that the NHS is collapsing and that there aren't enough school places to go round. They cannot conceive that this might be something to do with net migration of 325,000 per year, an astronomic number to which they are proposing the government should now add thousands of Syrians. Truly they are beyond satire.
At times like the present, plenty of decent people say, "Hang the rules. Let's just do the right thing". But what would the right thing look like? 10,000, says Yvette Cooper. Is that 10,000 this week? This month? This year? Why is 10,000 right, but 5,000 wrong? Come to that, why isn't 15,000 better still?
For those shattered into action by pictures of dead children, more is always better. If 15,000 is better than 10,000, 20,000 must also be better than 15,000. Yet even the most ardent enthusiast would have to accept that, even if taking more refugees entitles us to feel better about ourselves, there is going to come a point when we say, "Whoa there. That's enough for now". I have absolutely no doubt that Yvette Cooper is not suggesting we take 10,000 per week. It follows that there is no point in numerical terms where the moral high ground is attained: there is always going to be a higher number which would be better still.
Yet the higher number you admit, the closer you get to the limitations of practicality. Now or later we'll have to close the door on migrants, because their supply is limitless. No matter how many we take now there will always come a point at which we are going to have to limit asylum applications in much the same way as our law does at the moment. No matter how many we take the risk is that the people we don't take at number 10,001 on the list (or 20,001 and above; or whatever) die or are tortured or drown, usually unseen by the cameras. Not exactly a morally ideal solution.
It looks then as if we are not talking about doing something absolutely right, but something which is a messy compromise between practicality and virtue. It follows that there might be another approach which, however imperfect, might be better than taking a token 10,000.
Taking asylum seekers has its drawbacks. It encourages more to come. That's to say, it encourages more to take their chances with the people traffickers and their rickety overcrowded boats. How does that help stop children drowning? If you doubt me, look at the chaotic scenes at Hungarian railway stations as Germany's promise to take large numbers of refugees acts as a magnet for the desperate. And with the desperate come the economic migrants. What kind of system is which allows economic migrants to get in but keeps out genuine refugees?
Taking refugees (or, more likely, taking migrants some of whom will be refugees and some merely looking for a better life) is a palliative. It is a partial treatment of a symptom. What we should be doing is treating the cause. We should be removing the reasons why people want to escape in the first place. Surely this would be more "right" than taking an arbitrary number of Syrians to make ourselves feel better (and in case you feel this is harsh on people asking for kindness to individual Syrians, how else are we to describe those who did absolutely nothing for three years and suddenly discovered their consciences because they saw a harrowing photograph?)
A proper response would involve helping countries (by direct physical intervention if necessary) to get rid of despotic rulers and set up democratic governments. Allowing the youngest, fittest and most enterprising people to come to Europe only deepens the problems those countries have. If they must leave, let them be housed in adjacent countries from which they can go back, and by all means let Western countries, including Britain, pay for them to stay there.
It would really help if the section of Western societies which howled at the moon when Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, opposed intervention in Syria and are now berating European governments for failing to take the ensuing flood of refugees could shut up for a while. The Middle East and North Africa are partly a mess because, at their behest, Western governments did nothing to help moderates topple Assad.
Luvvies like Emma Thompson, who suddenly turns out to have been sufficiently expert on refugees to appear on Newsnight (someone at the BBC must have felt it wasn't digging its own grave quickly enough), are people whose heartstrings are twanging a quarter-tone sharp. They feel bad, and want to do something (preferably in public) which will make them feel good. In a few weeks Thompson will be worrying about the Oscars or the BAFTAS. What people like her aren't willing to do is argue for the long term unglamorous strategic goals which might, in the long term, result in fewer people being drowned in the Mediterranean or beheaded by ISIL.
Taking migrants is cheap. It involves those arguing for it in almost no effort whatsoever. It makes them feel good. They can then move on to other causes with - they feel - a clear conscience. It also does nothing whatsoever to fix the problem, and may in fact make matters worse. It is understandable, but also infantile and short-termist. It is reached for as a way of making the individual feel better in the face something truly awful, not as a way of making a repeat of the truly awful less likely (I should know. I've given several hundred quid to Save the Children. I now feel great).
Long-term engagement on the other hand makes no-one feel better. It involves many dead, some of whom will be Western. It is expensive. It entails watching depressing news on the TV, sometimes for weeks on end. It is a process of two steps forward, one step back at best (and sometimes one step forward and two steps back). Politicians who advocate it face the ordeal of holding their nerve in the face of a hostile press, vocal and self-righteous opponents and ruthless enemies. Success, if it comes, will be partial and compromised. And yet it offers the only true hope of solving the refugee crisis.
Intervention, as Iraq demonstrates, is incredibly difficult. The Americans and British remained in the country for ten years, and it turned out to be not long enough. You cannot expect a country without a democratic tradition to start making the messy compromises required overnight. We are guilty of thinking that there is a solution to this problem that can be accomplished painlessly and straight away. There isn't. As the American writer Alan Wolfe said, "Behind every citizen lies a graveyard". Peace and justice in the Middle East will not be accomplished without many, many dead, some of them ours.
We'd do better to accept that sobering thought and act strategically upon it than kid ourselves that taking a few thousand Syrian kids is going to sort things out.
So let's start with the morality of it. British law requires individuals to claim asylum in the first safe place they come to. Thus the people trying to hop onto trains and lorries at Calais are by definition not refugees. They are safe from persecution in France (incidentally they are also illegal immigrants in that country; but no-one in France seems to care and neither does the media or the political class here).
It's worth pointing out too that the child whose death has caused the current furore was not in this sense a refugee either. He had fled Syria with his family and had lived in Turkey for a year. No doubt they were living in pretty rotten circumstances in Turkey, but they were not in danger of persecution. They paid people traffickers because they thought they would have less rotten circumstances in Europe.
British law exists to keep the maximum number of refugees out. It says, "If you can get here, we'll consider your application. But if you are too weak, too poor, too unlucky or too encumbered by dependents to get here, too bad".
There is nothing moral about our refugee laws then. But before we condemn them it's worth considering the practicalities. There must be millions of people across Africa generally who could in theory claim asylum in Britain. Leave aside the economic migrants, there must be millions at risk of persecution. We cannot possibly take them all. It is simply impractical. In that context it's possible to look at our laws as a genuine attempt to allow a realistic number of people into Britain, whilst preventing a flood tide that would overwhelm our ability to process, absorb and pay for them.
Comically, the Yvette Coopers and Natalie Bennetts of this world are exactly the same people who are telling us that we have a housing crisis, that the NHS is collapsing and that there aren't enough school places to go round. They cannot conceive that this might be something to do with net migration of 325,000 per year, an astronomic number to which they are proposing the government should now add thousands of Syrians. Truly they are beyond satire.
At times like the present, plenty of decent people say, "Hang the rules. Let's just do the right thing". But what would the right thing look like? 10,000, says Yvette Cooper. Is that 10,000 this week? This month? This year? Why is 10,000 right, but 5,000 wrong? Come to that, why isn't 15,000 better still?
For those shattered into action by pictures of dead children, more is always better. If 15,000 is better than 10,000, 20,000 must also be better than 15,000. Yet even the most ardent enthusiast would have to accept that, even if taking more refugees entitles us to feel better about ourselves, there is going to come a point when we say, "Whoa there. That's enough for now". I have absolutely no doubt that Yvette Cooper is not suggesting we take 10,000 per week. It follows that there is no point in numerical terms where the moral high ground is attained: there is always going to be a higher number which would be better still.
Yet the higher number you admit, the closer you get to the limitations of practicality. Now or later we'll have to close the door on migrants, because their supply is limitless. No matter how many we take now there will always come a point at which we are going to have to limit asylum applications in much the same way as our law does at the moment. No matter how many we take the risk is that the people we don't take at number 10,001 on the list (or 20,001 and above; or whatever) die or are tortured or drown, usually unseen by the cameras. Not exactly a morally ideal solution.
It looks then as if we are not talking about doing something absolutely right, but something which is a messy compromise between practicality and virtue. It follows that there might be another approach which, however imperfect, might be better than taking a token 10,000.
Taking asylum seekers has its drawbacks. It encourages more to come. That's to say, it encourages more to take their chances with the people traffickers and their rickety overcrowded boats. How does that help stop children drowning? If you doubt me, look at the chaotic scenes at Hungarian railway stations as Germany's promise to take large numbers of refugees acts as a magnet for the desperate. And with the desperate come the economic migrants. What kind of system is which allows economic migrants to get in but keeps out genuine refugees?
Taking refugees (or, more likely, taking migrants some of whom will be refugees and some merely looking for a better life) is a palliative. It is a partial treatment of a symptom. What we should be doing is treating the cause. We should be removing the reasons why people want to escape in the first place. Surely this would be more "right" than taking an arbitrary number of Syrians to make ourselves feel better (and in case you feel this is harsh on people asking for kindness to individual Syrians, how else are we to describe those who did absolutely nothing for three years and suddenly discovered their consciences because they saw a harrowing photograph?)
A proper response would involve helping countries (by direct physical intervention if necessary) to get rid of despotic rulers and set up democratic governments. Allowing the youngest, fittest and most enterprising people to come to Europe only deepens the problems those countries have. If they must leave, let them be housed in adjacent countries from which they can go back, and by all means let Western countries, including Britain, pay for them to stay there.
It would really help if the section of Western societies which howled at the moon when Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, opposed intervention in Syria and are now berating European governments for failing to take the ensuing flood of refugees could shut up for a while. The Middle East and North Africa are partly a mess because, at their behest, Western governments did nothing to help moderates topple Assad.
Luvvies like Emma Thompson, who suddenly turns out to have been sufficiently expert on refugees to appear on Newsnight (someone at the BBC must have felt it wasn't digging its own grave quickly enough), are people whose heartstrings are twanging a quarter-tone sharp. They feel bad, and want to do something (preferably in public) which will make them feel good. In a few weeks Thompson will be worrying about the Oscars or the BAFTAS. What people like her aren't willing to do is argue for the long term unglamorous strategic goals which might, in the long term, result in fewer people being drowned in the Mediterranean or beheaded by ISIL.
Taking migrants is cheap. It involves those arguing for it in almost no effort whatsoever. It makes them feel good. They can then move on to other causes with - they feel - a clear conscience. It also does nothing whatsoever to fix the problem, and may in fact make matters worse. It is understandable, but also infantile and short-termist. It is reached for as a way of making the individual feel better in the face something truly awful, not as a way of making a repeat of the truly awful less likely (I should know. I've given several hundred quid to Save the Children. I now feel great).
Long-term engagement on the other hand makes no-one feel better. It involves many dead, some of whom will be Western. It is expensive. It entails watching depressing news on the TV, sometimes for weeks on end. It is a process of two steps forward, one step back at best (and sometimes one step forward and two steps back). Politicians who advocate it face the ordeal of holding their nerve in the face of a hostile press, vocal and self-righteous opponents and ruthless enemies. Success, if it comes, will be partial and compromised. And yet it offers the only true hope of solving the refugee crisis.
Intervention, as Iraq demonstrates, is incredibly difficult. The Americans and British remained in the country for ten years, and it turned out to be not long enough. You cannot expect a country without a democratic tradition to start making the messy compromises required overnight. We are guilty of thinking that there is a solution to this problem that can be accomplished painlessly and straight away. There isn't. As the American writer Alan Wolfe said, "Behind every citizen lies a graveyard". Peace and justice in the Middle East will not be accomplished without many, many dead, some of them ours.
We'd do better to accept that sobering thought and act strategically upon it than kid ourselves that taking a few thousand Syrian kids is going to sort things out.
