We really need to learn from Channel tragedy

The response to the deaths in the Channel, from UK right-wing thinking, lacks imagination because of moral limitations.

For how many decades shall we pay for shifts of an army of policemen and soldiers to patrol 100 miles of French beach? Both effort and money could be used more productively. It lacks intelligence.

Is this problem not exactly the same as Greek and Turkish beaches, Libyan and Italian beaches, where these countries asked for our help, years ago, to a “long-term”, shared problem, of helpless humans fleeing death with their children? If that was us, would we do something different?

If UK voters were responsible for dropping bombs on Iraq, Syria, Libya, as a clever method to solve problems, can they deny responsibility for long-term consequences? Shall these refugees live in camps with their children all their lives?

There is one long-term solution: international investment into these shattered countries, restoring potential which we destroyed, so families of these countries can find a future where they are.

I cannot trust unregulated British banks or businesses to have that vision, and Conservative voters have no belief in Government regulation of standards of honesty against commercial corruption, openly revealed in banks since 2007.

But, if all European governments could unite to perceive the longterm advantages to everyone, in stimulating honest economies in damaged countries, giving several types of return to us, this would be a positive response to present senseless tragedy, caused by ‘man’s inhumanity to man’.

This rational answer depends upon making UK Conservative capitalist economics serve the needs of all people, instead of a privileged few, but that depends upon something more profound, coaxing British adults to care for other people.

CN Westerman, by email