Psycho-federalist keyboard warrior Guy Verhofstadt is in the boat rowing for migrants this week. Purportedly.

Pithily, he reminded us that migration has been central to human history, and wryly noted that, ‘reportedly, even Nigel Farage’s ancestors once fled to England to make a better life.’

As barbs go, that wasn’t bad for a bloke who usually has to forcibly inject Hitlerian histrionics in order to raise a giggle.

Of course, the history of migration has often been characterised by the blocking of later movers by earlier ones. Look at the USA or Australia even. And those earlier settlers stole indigenous land to boot, spicing up their land-grabbing exploits with a spot of murder, rape, and pillage.

That’s pillage as in ‘faridge‘ and not ‘Faraaaaage‘.

Regrettably, Guy also seemed to be suggesting that ‘a better life’ existed in the UK and not in France or the EU.

That’s a fraudian slip; a gap in the rhetoric as well as in the teeth. But better a gap than a kick.

Perhaps he means ‘a better life’ for those in the EU once the migrants have scarpered from the continent? Oooh, now we could be onto something, even if it is not the dry land of hollering evidence.

The problem with the migration question is that – like Brexit and many other issues – strong for/against positions are frequently driven by single, favoured, passionate opinions. And then not to address the matter at hand but to use it to bolster wider, alternative political strategies.

In other cases, opponents of for/against will be criticised on the basis of the impassioned interest of the person(s) in the opposite corner.

It’s how ranting polemic politics rolls.

As a result, you might have concerns about unskilled migration for economic reasons, but be branded a racist by those convinced you have an aversion to ‘brown skin’ – or by those determined to convince others that you have.

The fact that so many people are risking their lives to free France perhaps tells you that the EU is not the last bastion of liberalism they would have you believe?

You’d think that it would be less risky for them to cross into another mainland country like Belgium or Germany over an open border?

If people are bobbing from France to seek asylum in the UK, then questions need to be asked of the regime in Paris? One for the EU to consider, perhaps? Unless they are too preoccupied with addressing other oppressive regimes who are not their largest net contributors?

And by ‘addressing‘, I mean a touch of ultra-Liberal words pew with no action. That is the EU MO, IMHO.

But the starting point for everybody needs to be a demarcation between asylum-seeking, migration, and refuge. Seeking asylum is borne out of immediate danger or fear of persecution.

Electing to migrate is about voluntary moves or enforced displacement that necessitates a need for refuge. I would like to think that all countries would be open to helping out with the wider world problem of displaced and persecuted persons. And migration, as Verhoffa correctly states, is central to history and indeed the present-day. There’s a great win-win in here between providing opportunities and progress – getting the job done.

So, his is never about clear-cut side-taking under general headings. Unless of course you are a scumbag racist at one pole or a wet unpragmatic, handwringing, virtue-signalling imbecile at the other. Both are as bad – and as prejudiced – as the other.

Both use simplified argumentation to activate as many people as possible, for whatever reason, to their over-arching causes.

The ghouls delighting in the loss of human life have clearly allowed their membership of the human race to expire. The extreme Liberal wets are just dim. They are awful fakes, but agreed, not as reprehensible as the vomit-inducing extreme-right.

Ultimately – in a sane, humane, and rational world, the whole migration/asylum business needs to be about individual cases and co-operation. Countries need to work together to understand how best to triage cases and to manage capacity.

The problem is that we don’t even have a Government that is sufficiently competent to cope with basic essential services for settled residents, so the case for incoming folk slams against the buffers from the off. That’s why economically desperate migrants will frequently play the asylum card.

And the transparency of that ploy simply allows woeful Governments a clear reason, and therefore a pass, to file close to everything under ‘No’. That pulls their administrative chestnuts out of the fire and indirectly progresses the racist agenda.

It is not just the migrants who are rowing in the wrong direction.

The politicians are simultaneously having a spurious row (in the sense of a handbag-whirling spat).

Lawmakers and administrators on all sides want the glory of liberalism without having to deal with the hard work and the cost of delivering a humanist equality.

Some of the Tories don’t pretend that hard to push the agenda though. Paradoxically, that is to their credit. At least they are more honest about their bastardry.

But make no mistake, they are all are desperate to keep the poor souls in their dinghies. These floaters are prime collateral for their wider agendas.

UK politicians talk the talk but shy away from sorting out the mess and working with other countries. Leaving the EU has nothing to do with it. We’re still part of the world order.

EU countries are equally hopeless. For them, migration equals Schengen and close ties between the wealthy. They couldn’t even whip up some compassionate action for the COVID-afflicted member states until the bloc was at the point of functional collapse.

So both sides default to their simplistic labels to fuel their respective political strategies. Slagging off Brexit UK and the EU respectively.

Both are equally immoral and seeking only to bolster their own wealth.

Getting back to Brexit, it’s exactly how that debate went (or not). Superficial for/against soundbites on all sides, but everything was always about mountains of bread and personal profit.

Meanwhile, we’re all in our boats, trying to keep afloat.