IN RECENT local publications the Green Party MEP for South West England, Molly Scott Cato, has protested the suggestion that Nigel Farage, recent leader of UKIP, should be considered for elevation to the Peerage.

Part of her pleading suggests that “Farage exploited vulnerable refugees in the detestable and now infamous “Breaking Point” poster”.

The ‘exploitation of vulnerable refugees’ can have many meanings, so maybe we should examine what part Ms Scott Cato has had in the exploitation of migrants or their welfare.

In September last year I attended a meeting in Stroud which had been called to discuss the worsening refugee crisis and which had been exacerbated by Chancellor Merkel’s unilateral decision to invite any and all refugees/migrants to Europe and particularly to Germany (a decision she now profoundly regrets).

I don’t remember any part of the EU construct being asked to debate or approve this invitation and, if memory serves, I don’t remember the Leader of any of the EU’s constituent nations passing comment either.

So much for the ‘Remain’s’ protest that should the UK leave the EU, we would lose our seat at ‘the top table’ of European decision making.

David Cameron raised no protest at our exclusion from any debate of the German move if, indeed, any occurred.

At the Stroud meeting, I asked the distinguished panel what provisions the EU had put in place to side-track the people-smugglers, whose tactics were placing the migrants in such deadly danger by forcing them to cross the Mediterranean in flimsy, un-seaworthy craft.

Answer was there are none, except that, ‘the EU were probably about to implement such measures’.

Deaths of migrants at sea by this time had become, tragically, almost common place but by January 2016 the situation remained the same and the EU and Germany had done precisely nothing to stem the rising tide of deaths.

The answer to this problem would be, I thought, remarkably easy for an organisation like the EU who had unlimited resources and expertise - but apparently not, and so I wrote a letter to a well regarded regional newspaper who printed my ‘solution’ I’m proud to say, as an editorial.

It surely then could not have escaped the attention of our local South West MEP who must keep up with affairs that affect the West Country and Green Party priorities, of which the migrant crisis is one.

So I might ask, What did she or her party do towards effecting a solution?

A template for the saving of lives in very similar circumstances had been set by the Israeli Government in 1984 and 1991 when they twice rescued the Jewish population from Ethiopia in ‘acts of logistical complexity and derring-do from famine and political upheavals’, (Guardian 1.12.15) - examples seemingly lost on the EU.A documentary detailing the operations in question was broadcast by BBC1 on December 13, but still the migrants pay the traffickers, and still the migrants drown: ‘Dozens drown in crowded boat’ (Guardian 23.9.16).

In late 2015, the EU gave Turkey the truly astonishing sum of three billion euros to assist in the saving of migrant lives which apparently has had little or no effect (or it would have been hailed as a triumph).

Maybe the reason why the results of the gift to Turkey has never been mentioned is that the policy of repatriating ‘unsuitable migrants’ to Turkey from EU countries (once they’ve landed) is illegal under current legislation – a situation that was easily explained in a speech to his Parliament by the Irish TD Paul Murphy.

Further criticism of the EU’s migrant policy can be found in an interview of the King of Jordan by the BBC reporter Lyse Ducet in February when he questions the very motives of the EU and their rejections of help.

Another gross result of the huge influx of migrants to Europe is the now infamous camp in Calais which the French Government has allowed to fester and rot, contrary to European protocols and treaties.

Anyone referring to it as ‘a concentration camp’ would not be contradicted by the definition of such a site in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In short, EU laws have been entirely ignored by the very people who instituted them.

“Exploitation of migrants by poster” (a very arguable point) is one thing, “Exploitation of migrants by lack of meaningful action and apparent disinterest” is another entirely,

Roger Gough

Minchinhampton