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But let’s be very clear. Katie Hopkins, unlike her critics, is offering a proposal to save the refugees’ lives.

Her solution is, of course, the right one. Regrettably, harsh though it may sound, the European Union has urgently to stop accepting refugees from outside Europe and resile from the the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, in order to save refugees’ lives and in order to save Europe from what is in effect an invasion. A British admiral made this point back in 2006. This invasion of refugees is a far bigger threat than Russia. Leaving the UN Convention, which was agreed in an utterly different world, would do more good than renewing Trident.

But are there any politicians brave enough to say this, except the far right? Winston Churchill would have agreed with every word of Katie Hopkins’s piece, but he would nowadays be beyond the pale.

The solution is not necessarily to force the refugees back. We can pay African countries to take them. This is much cheaper than housing them in Europe. It is a principle widely accepted by organisations that take refugees that they are best given refuge in countries close to their own.

We could subsidise Chad or Mali to take Libyans. I suspect that most refugees would prefer to stay in Libya.

If we don’t do something like this, the time will come when people will be moving countries to seek asylum from asylum seekers.