People fleeing persecution who find themselves crossing the Mediterranean in crowded, unstable boats often don’t make it. They drown.

As a result of the Lampedusa tragedy in 2013, when 500 people died, the Italian authorities launched a search and rescue operation called Mare Nostrum, which scans the Mediterranean for boats in trouble and rescues as many people as it can. The scheme involves the participation of the Italian navy and, since Lampedusa, has managed to save at least 150,000 lives.

The operation is now being closed down. According to The Guardian:

“The Italian authorities have said their operation, which involves a significant part of the Italian navy, is unsustainable. Despite its best efforts, more than 2,500 people are known to have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the start of the year.”[1]

It will not be replaced by anything remotely like it being set up by the European Union or any member state – in effect there will just be a border-control operation.

The saving of 150,000 lives must be considered a worthwhile achievement by any normal standards – but not according to Lady Anelay, minister of state at the Foreign Office. The UK, she announced (“quietly”, according to The Guardian) would not support any future search and rescue operations. Her Ladyship believes that any such operation in these waters represents an “unintended ‘pull factor’” on people which encourages them to board ramshackle boats to Europe’s shores when they otherwise wouldn’t do so.

They don’t need rescue, according to Lady Anelay. They need discipline and punishment. Apparently, drowning them will teach them a lesson and discourage others. What she said was this: if the UK were to fund a new search and rescue operation it would encourage “more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing”. This would lead “to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”. Presumably the deaths that will be caused by the government’s no-rescue policy will be untragic and necessary to good order. Discipline and punish. If you drown in your attempt to flee persecution in your own country don’t go whining to her Ladyship. She’s warned you what to expect.

And the government wants new immigrants and citizens to adopt “British values”? Well, if Lady Anelay’s announcement is an expression of those values, it has to be said that all the Mediterranean boat people and all the new immigrants and new citizens in the UK are better than that.

Read The Guardian’s dossier on the Mediterranean migrants: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/-sp-migrants-tales-asylum-sea-mediterranean

[1] The Guardian, Monday 27 October 2014.