Disillusioned with Schengen

“It is clear the greatest tide of refugees and migrants is yet to come. So we need to correct our policy of open doors and windows. Now the focus should be on proper protection of our external borders.”Donald Tusk, head of the European Council

THE SCHENGEN open doors policy is finally being criticised by its creators. I can remember when conservative voices who opposed Schengen from its very beginning were labelled as racists and bigots, by the Labour party and the Left-wing of the Conservative Party. Since then we have learnt from the likes of Peter Mandelson that Blair signed us up to it as to embarrass and bait the Tories; thus keeping Labour in power for ever under what Blair hoped would prove to be a New Labour thousand year Reich where grateful Poles, Romanians, and Portuguese would replace a diminishing working class as Labour's new constituency.

                

                The danger to this country of such a cynical gesture was either brushed aside for party political advantage; or, in the romantically constructed belief in the need to turn Europe into a United States of Europe – a federal Europe.

                

                Tony's very own 'Blair Witch Project' has backfired spectacularly. Even before the latest avalanche of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and yes, even Pakistan and Bangladesh; the Right was gaining strength throughout Europe as European nations had to pull down their borders to allow the free movement of people throughout the EU. Now those borders have disappeared: the European people were never consulted let given a vote on such a desperately important issue         whose purpose was to end national sovereignty and nation state itself.

                

                 Now the unintended consequences of the EU's open border policy is allowing a great flood of humanity to enter the border-less continent and set down wherever they like, and if they are opposed by Eastern European countries like Hungary; the Hungarian government has faced great criticism, for her actions.

                

                 Germany appears to be the Emerald City to which they are drawn. Angela Merkle has told 800,000 of them to follow the yellow brick road with more expected to follow in the coming years; and they eagerly do so whatever nation between themselves and Germany tries to prevent them. The great German Wizard, they believe, will be their saviour. Armed with mobile phones, they send out invitations to their families to join them – Angela is welcoming us all. So they come, one and all via Turkey. The Great Wizard has offered them a sanctuary of a kind that would have been beyond their dreams, even if Syria had not descended into bloody self-immolation.

AT LEAST DONALD TUSK has finally got the message; although I fear it is too late. He should have had the courage to speak out sooner than he has. Now, I fear, because Europe could not take the hard decisions as Australia did; I believe Europe could now be overwhelmed. Tusk is calling for border controls to be reinstated; but once the horse has bolted – what is the point?

                

               Those arrogant self-preening, unelected EU commissioners, whose distaste for what they contemptuously refer to as 'popularism' allowed them to bypass the ballot box on every single occasion when they drew up new treaties (like Maastricht, and Lisbon) that effected the lives of the people of Europe who they believe themselves the overlords of. In a way it is like the 19^th century rotten boroughs in England: or a more prescient example; the Divine Right of Kings, where laws were concocted without any referent to the common herd; the magisterial European Commission disdains popularism (democracy) believing they, and only they, are competent to know what is in the best interests of the EU. These wretches are like the bourbons who thought that they and only they were blessed with the insight needed to govern a country - or a continent.

               
                In the light of concurrent events - the single currency fiasco and now mass migration; the EU is like the emperor with no clothes as some wit compared the events unfolding on European borders amounted to. The EU is indeed the Emperor with no clothes; because any such concoction of 28 nations with diverse interests would have done sooner or later – split between themselves and in self national interest, formed alliances as Europe had done for centuries. National interest will always sooner or later take precedence over a concocted, romantic, idealistic, and a wholly Enlightenment project that France in particular drew heavily to its breast after the Second World War.

EUROPE IS IMPERILLED by mass migration. But why Angela Merkle is responding so generously to this situation, is not out of compassion for the migrants she invited into Germany. I do not mean to insinuate any kind of a lack of compassion on the German chancellor's part in her decision – she is, after all, human. But as someone has already noted; Germany's response has more to do with what happened 70 years ago than what is happening today; and I think it is true. Germany should never forget its past, as no country should; but Germany has done much to redeem itself and has today nothing this generation has to blame itself for. But compassion should never be the auxiliary of guilt. Compassion should be for want of a better word, virginal without feelings of guilt, based upon the premise of simple humanitarian impulses unclouded by guilt; either individually or nationally.

                

               The German nation did terrible things in their recent past. But as the premier EU nation, Merkle should not have invited, through guilt, this mass migration into her country; which once established as citizens under Schengen, would be allowed to infiltrate the rest of Europe. I describe it as an infiltration because the citizens of the countries they will no doubt be allowed under Schengen to enter; never had any say in their arrival. It had already been decided by Schengen and the European Commission.

               

                Because of her generosity - who knows? Perhaps she will have, by her actions, summoned up similar monsters from her country's past in the coming decades, when a declining birth rate among the German people causes much resentment among them toward migrants – beware of unintended consequences to noble impulses.