Cheers for Silvio Berlusconi

Although I am essentially an Anglophile at heart, at the same time I have always been a great admirer of the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi particularly now that not only has he solved many problems in his country (who cares about his amorous peccadilloes) but with one courageous decision he has for the time being eased our problem of weekly arrivals of illegal immigrants.

Malta yet has to learn that there is a time for diplomacy and a time for tough action.

After four years of talk, talk and more talk I believe that we have exhausted completely any possibility of the EU taking our problem seriously. The only diplomat who took concrete action had been the American Ambassador Molly Bordonaro who last year had managed to persuade the American immigration authorities to take a few hundred immigrants from Malta.

I think that should the illegal immigrant train resume we should copy Mr Berlusconi's action. Furthermore the Maltese who possibly are involved in this human trafficking should be caught and brought to justice. In the meantime, we should see what we will be doing with the 9,000 odd immigrants on our island. While in Malta they should be looked after well but keeping them here is not the best of ideas. For one thing their birth rate is normally three times ours. According to the British newspapers, in the UK these days only two out of three babies are white and, therefore, soon the number of immigrants in Malta could also increase to such an extent that they could change the character of our island and our religion. These immigrants have to be sent back to their own country. After all they have arrived here without any invitation or any permit. I hate to think what would happen to me if I landed in any country outside the EU without a visa or a passport. The number of genuine political refugees can be counted on the fingers of one hand. After all, these immigrants were not being politically molested in the last place where they lived - Libya.

In the present economic downturn we can ill afford the millions of euro being meted out to these people. Apparently hundreds of these immigrants are weekly cashing cheques being given to them by our government. All this when we have an unemployment problem, and 60,000 of our own people, particularly those living in the south, are living below the poverty line. There is also a security issue since the religion of the majority is Islam, an aggressive religion. Not every Muslim is a terrorist but nearly every terrorist these days happens to be a Muslim.