Well done to the Channel 4 halfwits

The number of people arriving here in small boats has increased since Sir Keir Starmer was elected Prime Minister on 4 July last year. The 20,000 figure was passed in December. Perhaps the increase is a consequence of these disparate individuals yearning to live in a country in which Angela Rayner is the Deputy Prime Minister. Or maybe they have noticed that one of the great cabinet posts has been conferred upon David Lammy and they think to themselves – goodness, these guys are taking affirmative action to absurd levels. We can’t go wrong here.

Either way, the numbers seem to be up and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, continues to paddle around forlornly in the English Channel, striking a deal with the French over penalties for refugees who fail to take any notice when the dilatory French coppers try to apprehend them.

I fear it will make not the slightest difference. The only way to stop people coming is to make this country a much less desirable place in which to arrive as an illegal migrant. Otherwise the demand for transport, however perilous, will continue and you can bet that the supply of that transport will not reduce.

‘Going after’ the traffickers, as Labour continually avows, is the dimmest means of attempting to reduce the numbers of small boats setting out from Calais, but it does allow Yvette to pretend that the problem is not the refugees per se, who are lovely people, but the ‘traffickers’. This is what we call a category error, but if it allows Yvette to feel good about herself, who are we to cavil?

Meanwhile, there is no social crisis so grave that it cannot be made worse by the sudden arrival of the Channel 4 halfwits on the scene. This week saw the first instalment of a staggeringly stupid documentary called Go Back To Where You Came From, which was seemingly Channel 4’s attempt to persuade us that not nearly enough migrants are jumping into those boats – we need more and more and more.

They made sure that those who were most against the migrants were as unpleasant as it is possible to be

The schtick was this. Round up a bunch of people who wish to end the flood of people into our country from dinghies, inner tubes, whatever, and take them to the places from where the migrants have fled. Make sure that they are thoroughly belligerent and odiously right-wing, drop into the mix a couple of lefties who disagree, and see what happens.

And so these ‘ordinary folk’, who included a strident lesbian from Wales who referred to herself as a ‘flap-guzzler’ and a very large man from the north of England who wanted the little boats blown out of the water with heavy ordnance, were deposited in downtown Mogadishu and also in Syria.

What did they find there? That both places were indisputably shitholes, and dangerous shitholes to boot. There was a lot of rifle fire. They were roused from their makeshift beds to flee in one instance.

What was the point of this? Are the morons who work at Channel 4 under the illusion that we believe the migrants come from pristine Jeffersonian democracies, that Somalia is in all honesty a little like the quieter parts of Monaco? What a fabulously inane notion. They made sure that those who were most against this influx of people were as coarse and unpleasant as it is possible to be, and borderline racist to boot, so as to demonstrate that these were the sorts of people who ‘don’t like’ refugees.

Sadly, they were a little less picky when it came to the lefties, who were there to provide a counterpoint and be proven right in the end. One of them, a horrible, self-righteous idiot called Bushra Shaikh, was very soon outed on social media as a profound anti-Semite. European Jews, she had posted on one occasion, were ‘a bunch of lying scumbags’. She’ll probably have her own series on Channel 4 later this year.

Of course, I don’t need to explain why Channel 4’s entire premise was asinine – but I will anyway, just so there’s no doubt. We are all very aware that for the most part, the refugees come from some of the most appalling countries on God’s good Earth. Nobody thinks they come here for the fun of the trip and to have a look round the Tower of London. They come here because they are given immediate access to copious amounts of support and can enjoy peaceful lives in a modern democracy. Their chances of being kicked out of the country are as close to zero as it is possible to get, even if they are jihadis who would like to stab us all to death or blow us up – and even if they are jihadis who not only wish to do that, but actually have the plans by which they may do so on their person in a sealed watertight bag. That’s why they wish to come here.

We, meanwhile, are mindful of the need to help people from some of the world’s worst shitholes, but would prefer to prioritise the most vulnerable – women, children, the elderly and people who have been persecuted under a foul regime, rather than fit and able-bodied young men, as most of the current arrivals indeed are.

Pretty much everybody in the country is agreed that we cannot take an unlimited number of these people, so a line has to be drawn somewhere – perhaps in the sand on the beach at Calais. We know they are ‘human beans’. What Channel 4 has done is not only insist that the refugees have a right to come here illegally, but that there is something brave and glorious in them doing so and it should meet with both our admiration and our indulgence. It is a response which offers no solution to solving the crisis and will guarantee that more people are killed.