“Would that include not providing rescuing arrangements for these people ?”
Yes it would, Mikey. Of course the usual courtesies of the sea would apply (i.e. any vessels that happen to be in the vicinity of a disaster go to help). But the provision of a specific permanent force set up to rescue people who have deliberately placed themselves at enormous risk should not be considered.
Of course the UK has to share the blame for inflaming the situation in Libya and other African nations. I made it very clear at the time (and since) that the so-called “Arab Spring” was none of our business and would only end in tears. So it turned out to be and with due credit to the Commons those tears would have been even greater flood had they not vetoed the government’s ridiculous plan to intervene in Syria. But there is no justification to compound the lunacy of one government decision by implementing another. Having said that migration northwards from Africa has not, in my opinion, been unduly affected by our involvement. It's been going on for years without any encouragement from us.
I’m a bit miffed at being linked with people who “..can recognise a problem without being able to propose a solution.” Especially as my proposal to abandon the Schengen Agreement is mentioned in the same breath. Far from being unable to propose a solution to this problem I thought I made it abundantly clear in my first post what my proposal would be. My suggestion to end Schengen is part of the solution and it is not unworkable. Indeed lack of Schengen does not seem to unduly hinder business and commerce in the non-Schengen nations, namely the UK and Ireland. But it does, most notably for the purposes of this question, make it a little more difficult for people not entitled to be in Europe at all to gain entry to the UK. The Schengen Agreement has not yet been in existence for twenty years. I’m sure there are people around who remember how to administer internal borders within Europe and all that is needed is for the common sense of the pre-Schengen era to return because the facilities provided by it are exacerbating this problem.
European nations have been trying to make Africa an agreeable place for Africans to live for decades and have singularly and unsurprisingly failed. There is no reason to believe anything can be achieved ever and the time has come to give up. There is no need for a “summit” to discuss this problem. There are only two ways to deal with it. Either the southern European nations take it on themselves to protect their coastlines by taking control of any vessel approaching without authority, prevent it from landing and return it to the North African coast. Or we send an comfortable cruise ship to Tripoli once a week to pick up two or three thousands migrants, land them in various ports throughout Europe and provide them with a council house, money and gifts. There is nothing in between and since council houses, money and gifs are in fairly short supply in the UK and most of Europe I know where the moral duty of European governments lies.