I remain very uneasy on the moral side of the illegal immigrant saga. Thousands leave various African countries each year to try for a better life in Europe. Note, I are not talking about asylum seekers here, although I am sure a small percentage might qualify. The overwhelming majority are economic migrants.

Their plan, such as it is, is to travel to Europe by whatever means and hope they can remain here, building a new life for themselves. They risk life and limb to cross the Mediterranean and end up being corralled in camps in, amongst other places, Greece.

Greece does not have the resources to deal with such an influx, and not unsurprisingly, looks to the EU to help them solve their problem. The EU hasn’t forgotten the financial mismanagement that nearly bankrupted the Greeks a few short years ago, and the money that was given or leant. There are those that feel that direct help to Greece should be tied to the obligation by the Greeks to put their finances in order.

What bothers me is how we deal with those from outside that want to gate-crash the systems in European countries. The aggressive actions of migrants trying to cross to the UK from France, or those seemingly setting fire to the holding camp on Lesbos to provoke action, do not endear me to their plight.

Those of us born here, or that immigrated quite legally on their own means, know all too well that you don’t get accommodation and income handed to you on a plate. If you fall on hard times, most countries here have a system to help out, but there is a lot of pressure on those systems. Why should people who crash the party expect a free ride into a better life?

Nations have spent centuries building themselves up – some of them at the expense of others. Do we have the moral high ground? Are we in a position to put up a no-entry sign on the shores of the Mediterranean? Are we justified in treating illegal immigrants worse than prisoners of war?

The question is not simply one of stemming the flow. Even if the final answer is a one-way ticket back to where they came from (although they are often devoid of documents on purpose), are we justified in being less than humanitarian while we process each case?

Simply rewarding their efforts will inevitably encourage more to try the same, and there are human traffickers making huge sums of money out of this. The root of the discontent on the African continent is inequality, some of which was caused, or at least fuelled, by the past colonial activities of major European countries.

I am not saying that reasoning is in the minds of all those seeking the promised land, but the percentage we spend on overseas aid, not all of which actually reaches the right pockets, is a drop in the ocean. Even that tiny amount is begrudged by many in our modern day societies.

Even shifting climate conditions in Africa resulting in failed crops has a lot to do with the pollution industrial countries have caused over the years.

All of this is an extremely complicated ethical question and cannot be solved overnight. However, we have wasted a lot of time not preparing ourselves for this debate. The problem of illegal migrants is not going to go away. Their sheer numbers and the length of Europe’s southern coastline would require a giant military operation to effectively police.

I do not condone the actions of illegal migrants but I can understand why they are doing it. Many have mobile phones, even though I cannot understand how they finance them. They have a means of observing life in the West, they can see what they are missing out on.

They are not above violence towards truckers at Calais, and now they have discovered that setting fire to their camps is an effective way of forcing more action to help them. They are exceedingly determined to get a foothold in Europe, and we haven’t yet worked out any adequate strategy for dealing with the situation.

Answers on a postcard …