[Osem]

As unpleasant as the thought is, he is right and it will have to happen if we're going to have any chance of preventing Europe being flooded. Encouraging migrants to come to the EU is really no different from the UK allowing free access to EU citizens and look how many came here. The main differences are: a) there are many more people around the world who want that chance and are utterly desperate to take it and b) the cultural and other differences and usually far greater, both of which will mean successfully integrating and accommodating them will be impossible. For those who are rightly concerned about the plight of refugees, well taking in economic migrants in such vast numbers simply means the public appetite for and means by which to assist genuine refugees will be severely diminished.

We really do have to get real - it's no good the Eurocrats bandying around terms like 'grave emergency' whilst standing there wringing their hand and watching the disaster unfold. We have to be decisive and proactive not reactive - the EU has proven itself to be neither.