Croatia next, then......

[Workingman]

.... Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Slovakia now that Croatia is allowing migrants through.

The migrants will not bother with Serbia now that Hungary has shut the border. They will be like water and take the shortest route north.

It might be sunny now, but autumn starts this weekend and it will not be long before the skiers and snowboarders head off there for their winter holidays. All of the Balkans, from central Greece to the foothills of the Alps, are rugged and mountainous. If something is not done soon what is now a migrant crisis could become a human tragedy of epic proportions.

[Suff]

This is true. But.

Nobody asked them to break all international and EU laws to do what they are doing. Nobody asked them to come (well until Germany said we'll take you).

They have taken themselves out of a safe and secure (if not very rewarding), situation, close to home so they could go back after the fighting stops.

Now Winter is coming and it's our fault apparently if they die. I'm not inhuman. I'm not even lacking in compassion. But I won't be blackmailed by people who are willing to put their children at horrendous risk to get a better leg up whilst they can't go home.

If it were me, they'd be booted out of Greece back to Turkey. They'd never even get to Athens. I'd bring a ship round and deport them there and then unless they had documentation proving their refugee status and that Greece was the first place they made it to.

I put it down under firmness to save lives. Weakness and vacillating attitude only puts those children at risk. It took less than a day for the illegals to start chanting Germany after Merkel offered to take them. Why? Because they picked it up on the news on their mobile phones....

[Workingman]

I have no sympathy for their illegal activities, none at all, but my goodness a little bit of human kindness would not go amiss.

Look at the way they are dressed. Think of the warmer climates they have come from and are used to. This winter could see a death toll much higher than the one in the Med.

A solution I would like to see is for the EU to set up and fund refugee camps in Croatia and Bosnia. Not only would they be kept safe they would also be in places where they could be properly processed. If nothing is done many of them will be left out in the cold, literally, the freezing cold of a European winter.

I have been in some cold places in my time living in military grade tents, wearing military grade parkas, gloves and clothing and sleeping in military grade all season mummy sleeping bags. One way I would not choose to die is of cold and hunger.

This is one side of the crisis coin where I actually do think that we have to do something for them.

[Rodo]

I have to say I'm with Suff on this. They made their choice. I know things are bad in Syria, but to drag small children all that way in what they knew would be bad conditions is just crazy. To be too welcoming and too helpful means that more and more will come. There comes a point where the citizens of a country have to look after themselves and their own situation and not to give in to the inevitable emotional blackmail, because that is what it is.

[Workingman]

I have been consistent all along about not letting them in or rounding them up and sending them back, but this is a new dynamic - the autumn and winter weather.

Give it a few weeks for autumn to get going then go stand outside for an hour one evening in a short-sleeved T shirt, trousers and flip-flops.

There have been a few nights of late where I have been tempted to put the central heating on. It will certainly be on come October - they will not have that luxury.

[TheOstrich]

It is going to be extremely difficult. You can't let them die like dogs from cold and malnutrition in the streets and the forests. For a start, I think that it won't be too long before they start turning on the indigenous populations of Austria, Serbia, Croatia, so on, scavenging for food and shelter. There will be deaths on both sides, and then the armies / militias will begin to get involved .... we are talking about the Balkans here. There is the potential for this to get very, very ugly.

Setting up refugee camps in the Balkans is one humanitarian solution, but what then? Come the spring, they'll just start marching north again. Enforced repatriation has to be the way forward, even if it means setting up NATO controlled safe havens in Syria and Afghanistan, and I mean proper safe havens, properly and aggressively defensible, not some half-cock UN / Central African fiasco. In fact, I wouldn't get the UN involved at all, they are proven hopeless (Srebrenica, etc).

But another problem is, they are not just Syrians. Hungary has arrested more than a few Bangladeshis (I haven't got a link yet, I think it's still breaking news). These are economic migrants, not refugees. They must be shipped home as fast as possible, and if they won't go voluntarily, then in shackles in the loading bay of a RAF Hercules, or EU equivalent.

Finally, Merkel must be removed from office, and quickly. She is the architect of this current situation in Hungary and Austria, and while she remains in power, Germany will not be able to reverse its open doors policy - a policy that is going to lead to the Islamisation and destruction of the West. If you have not yet been convinced to vote for England to leave the EU, you need to take a very long, hard look at what's in store in the next 20-30 years. We need to impose full border controls and visas for EU citizens visiting Britain ASAP.

[Suff]

Honestly, I know what is going to happen. I, too, have spend long cold evenings lying on the ground. I've done it with sub standard Army equipment with sub standard Army clothing. I've been taken out on exercise and dumped in -15 conditions without even the warmer clothing they issue us. I would not choose to freeze to death either, even if the latter stages are pretty much dream like.

However here's the problem. It's not the ~200k still working their way through Greece and Macedonia right now that is the problem. It's the 300 - 500k that are going to follow them. If we don't send them back south, south of the Greek mountains, to force the others not to try, all we will do is have a trail of dead bodies all the way to the "safe" camps in Bosnia and Serbia.

They are not going to stop coming especially as Merkel has basically told them that she'll fill up Germany and when Germany is full they'll send them over to the rest of the EU until the stop coming, several million later.

This is like the Aussies with the overloaded ships coming over with hundreds and hundreds on at risk of their lives. The Aussies simply said NO and made it stick. So they stopped coming. So the lives at risk reduced.

I know it's hard and I know that it is totally against our Christian Ethos. But Orban is right. If we don't stem the tide now and make these people stop what they are doing, tens of thousands more will die in the attempt. An attempt at what? Not a safe haven, they already have that. What they are after is More than they are getting.

[cromwell]

I have never known an issue which shows how wide the gap is between the media and the politicians on one side, and the public on the other. One side giving it "Oh the POOR migrants" and the pubic seeing them for what they are - violent, entitled "asylum shoppers" who think they have a right to do what they want, go where they want and get rewarded at the end of it. Unfortunately the only way to stem this invasion of Europe - because that is what it is - is by using lethal force.

I am sorry if I upset any genuine Labour people, but thank God Miliband didn't win the last election, because we'd be signed up to take 100,000 plus by now.

Thank God for the Channel, that's all I can say.

[Workingman]

It looks like I am in a minority of one on this.

My thinking, re camps for migrants, is that not only will they be safe, but they can be processed. Those Germany is wiling to take can be passed on, those refused could then be sent back at some time. Any who refuse to go to the camps would then be seen to be acting illegally and when rounded up also be sent back - the media and politicians would not be able to explain them away as something else.

I will, however, predict this: If people are seen dying out in the open without any offers of help then the attitudes within European countries will change. The media and politicians would have a field day tugging at heart strings.

[TheOstrich]

..... My thinking, re camps for migrants, is that not only will they be safe, but they can be processed. Those Germany is wiling to take can be passed on, those refused could then be sent back at some time .......

If I can be allowed to quote Karla DeVito from "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" ..... "Stop right there!"

There will need to be a concerted political will and an organised apperatus on the ground to "send them back". At the moment we have neither, let alone proper camps or processing centres, and we are a million miles away from even approaching a policy to "send them back" ......

And in the here and now, frustrated migrants are stoning the Hungarian border police in retaliation for the use of water cannon and tear gas to protect their borders (BBC 6:00 news). Are these migrants the sort of people we want in our society, whether they are processed or not? These are the sort of people who will be given asylum in Germany under its open doors policy and once they have German citizenship, be allowed to travel anywhere in the EU.

I repeat my call for Merkel to be sacked, and England to get out of the EU ASAP.

Believe me, I am with you on the short term humanitarian aspects, WM, especially in regards to a Balkans winter - but we have to get a long term strategy going to sort this shambolic mess out.