This is what "The Independent" said about it in London today.
(I am not expressing an opinion, just showing what some of the papers in the UK think.)
Quote begins:
You can understand why the Australians aren't keen to let in those asylum-seekers crammed on that boat in the Pacific. After all, there's hardly any room left in Australia, is there? If they carried on letting people in at that rate, within a millennium or two they'd be down to their last half a dozen deserts.
And you can see why a nation with a proud history like Australia would find it strange that anyone would want to leave the country they were brought up in to go somewhere where there was already a native population. And for all the Australians know, some of those trying to get in have got criminal records. You can't build a nation from stock like that!
And it's quite possible the people hoping to claim asylum are planning to sponge off the state. Because their behaviour up to now displays a classic sign of laziness and wanting everything on a plate. Anyone who's ever interviewed people for a job knows that if someone has got to the interview by escaping from a tyrannical regime, squeezing onto a fishing boat and bobbling across the Pacific, he'll be the type who is never prepared to put in any effort.
Somehow, the authorities concerned are already discussing how those who are "genuine" refugees will be treated differently from the "economic migrants". Which suggests that some of them are not genuine, but simply trying to better themselves, in the same way someone might do a course in computers to get a better job in the office. They sit in their Afghan gardens, looking at the brochures, and say to the wife: "Hmm, there's something here that would ease our financial burden. It would mean going short for a few weeks, while we drift through shark-infested seas on a rickety trawler held together with staples surrounded by our own **** and vomit and groaning from dysentery, but the extra 90 quid a month wouldn't 'alf come in handy."
To which she'll reply "I'm sure you're right, dear" – as anything else would render her liable to be stoned to death for being too lippy.
But the tone of the Australians is similar to that of most Western countries. The British Government has just decided to maintain the system that denies cash benefits to asylum-seekers, granting them vouchers instead because, as yesterday's Daily Mail gleefully reported, "scrapping vouchers would encourage more asylum-seekers".
Because once word got round in Kabul that refugees were entitled to cash, Britain would seem like a game show beaming at you to come on and try to win 56 whole pounds. Afghans would be running through the mosque gulping vodka and baring their arses in the hope that the Taliban might chop off an arm so that they could cling to the bottom of a Eurostar train with their remaining fingers and frolic amid the nightlife of Margate.
Now they are taking seriously the call to deny jobs to foreigners who can't speak English, an idea first mooted by Labour MP Ann Cryer. Just as the English never fail to master our hosts' language before we set foot in another country. If a group of English tourists are in Rome and one of the party, having listened to an Italian speaking fluent English, says "Oh well, arriva derci then", the others will say: "Oooo, aren't you clever? Where did you pick that up?"
The language test would be fair enough, if they were allowed to employ English methods of speaking to foreigners. Then asylum-seekers could go up to a stranger in Canterbury and yell "Which way is the Post Office? I said WHICH WAY IS THE POST OFFICE? THE POST OFFICE. YOU KNOW, THE POST OFFICE, PO-ST-OF -ICE." And all in fluent Arabic.
Then they would have to throw their arms in the air and tut loudly before miming licking a stamp, and finally declare that this old dear was obviously typical as she didn't speak a word of bloody Arabic.
For the English could be in the middle of the rainforest in Borneo, come across a remote ancient tribe sitting in a clearing and ask: "Excuse me mate, you don't happen to know if there's a cashpoint anywhere round here, is there?"
Like the reaction to the poor sods on board that boat, there is a complete lack of logic in the language theory. It's not that all those who support it are racist, but they surrender to the racists. So now Britain gets rebuked on almost a weekly basis by bodies such as the United Nations for breaking international laws and standards on refugees. But the Government behaves like the hard kid returning from a caning in the headmaster's office, proudly smirking that his beating proves his toughness.
Then, however draconian their plan, they claim that it's to ensure healthy race relations. You can't help thinking that if the current leaders of Western governments had been in charge of Nazi Germany, they'd have made a statement that went: "There's nothing anti-Semitic about our plans. We're only gassing these ones to allay the fears of the German people, and to ensure a healthy prosperous climate for the genuine Jews that are left."