The Cross Maltese, Their Disturbing Politics And The Drawbacks Of Asylum A La Carte

Last night, BBC reporter Daniel Sandford reported on Malta's growing asylum crisis for the 'Ten O'Clock News'.

Four years ago, illegal immigration into Malta was not a problem - in the first ten months of this year, 1,500 Africans have found themselves beached there, the demographic equivalent of 250,000 arrivals in the UK over the same period.

What the Internet report doesn't mention are the increased number of launches by the Maltese Maritime Squadron, presumably servants of the Maltese taxpayer, who have required to ramp up their operations in fulfillment of the mariner's duty of pulling souls from the sea.

Dang, it's a tough life being an illegal on Malta. They make you live in a camp. Those pesky Maltese, stolidly independent island types that they are, have actually had the temerity to form a right-wing anti-immigration party, Alleanza Nazionali Republikana! Which has actually held - a rally! How dare they!

Given that he is apparently a rather wet BBC type, you will note that Sandford describes the emergence of a populist anti-immigration party as 'disturbing'. I wonder how that might play with my wee pal Kenny MacEachen?

But the worst thing of all, which shows just how sophisticated the entire 'illegal immigration' and 'asylum' rackets are, is that most of the immigrants don't want to be there! They'd rather be in Italy, their intended destination, you see, because,

"They came to Malta by mistake. They were crossing the Mediterranean between Libya and Italy. Thousands make the journey each year in tiny boats. Many die, but some end up in Malta after running out of fuel, or losing their way.

They have to claim asylum in Malta to avoid being sent home, and then they are stuck. Under EU rules, they have to stay in the country in which they first arrived.

"It's like a trap," said Warsame Ali Garare, a well-educated Somali in his 20s. "You can't continue, you can't go back, and the Maltese don't want you here. The dream is to leave Malta. Everybody wants to leave."

And it seems that many Maltese would be happy to let them go, but they can't, not without shuffling the problem onto its EU partners. Sandford describes the state of affairs as being "...a kind of perverse reversal of the American immigrants' dream ", thus showing the depth of his ignorance of immigration history processes, because only criminals and chancers try to cross the Mediterranean without knowing how to use a compass.

Bona fide immigrants buy things called 'tickets'.