The Channel deaths were a tragedy waiting to happen

Yesterday’s tragedy in the Channel has been ten years in the making. The British tabloids this morning are inevitably pointing the finger at the French for the deaths of 27 migrants who drowned after their dinghy sank not far from Calais, but that lets off the hook those who ultimately bear responsibility for the migrant crisis that afflicts Europe from Sweden to Sicily.

One of those responsible is Angela Merkel, who is preparing to hand over the Chancellery to the insipid Olaf Scholz. Six and a half years ago she took the unilateral decision to open Europe’s borders to more than a million migrants and refugees. ‘We can do this!’ she declared. In an interview earlier this month Merkel claimed she had been vindicated. ‘Yes, we did it. But by “we”, I mean a truly large number of people in Germany who helped get it done.’

As usual, Merkel, the so-called great European, was thinking only in German terms.