Wacker guilty: but Labour stands accused in Chinese immigrant tragedy
Victims of racist laws!
Dutch lorry driver Perry Wacker was sentenced to 14 years for his role in the deaths of 58 Chinese "illegal immigrants" who suffocated on the crossing from Zeebrugge to Dover last June.
Wacker and other gangsters who exploit the misery of poor and vulnerable people around the world deserve no sympathy: but neither does the system that allows them to make huge sums from the trade in human beings.
If it were not illegal for all but the smallest number of refugees and immigrants to come to Britain and other countries in "Fortress Europe", there would be no space for criminal gangs to charge desperate and impoverished people thousands of pounds for smuggling them in.
"History has shown that immigrants bring ideas, vigour and ambition as well as their mere labour. … As more countries are finding, migrants have a benign effect on rich economies" - The Economist , March 31
But of course it has suited New Labour – even more than other EU governments – to play up to backwardness and racism by maintaining and strengthening the racist laws against immigrants and asylum seekers. Ironically, the only reason Wacker’s unfortunate passengers found any sympathy was by dying in tragic circumstances: had they been found alive they would have been departed without a thought.
Home Office minister Barbara Roche, Labour’s answer to Ann Widdecombe, proudly boasts that this government deports more people than any previous government. The government that so eagerly promotes free movement of capital is soft on racism and soft on the causes of racism, using almost any excuse to whip up hostility to asylum seekers.
Ministers were even happy to let false rumours circulate blaming foot and mouth disease on illegal meat imports to Chinese restaurants.
Locking up Wacker won’t prevent similar tragedies in the future: to do that we must campaign for open borders and the scrapping of all immigration restrictions.