This mad deal on migrants is a real TURKEY

ThE EU’s solution to the escalating migration crisis is to give 75 million Turks visa-free access to Europe. Who thought that was a good idea? In addition, Brussels has also agreed to pay Turkey more than £2 billion to tighten border security. Britain’s share of the bill will be in the region of £280 million, even though we are not part of the open borders Schengen treaty.

Not that the opt- out from Schengen has done anything to curb net migration to this country, which hit a record 336,000 in the year to June.

That headline figure also masks the true scale of foreign nationals moving to Britain, since it is calculated by deducting the number of people who emigrate. The actual total of new arrivals over that period is north of 600,000.

Our population is set to grow by ten million over the next 20 years, with most of it coming from immigration.

That’s if you believe the estimates, which I don’t. We have been constantly lied to by politicians about the overwhelming level of migration. Remember when Labour told us there would be only 13,000 migrants from Eastern Europe? The truth is nearer two million. In the past 12 months, more than 50,000 arrived from Bulgaria and Romania alone.

Call Me Dave promised to cut immigration to the ‘low tens of thousands’. how’s that working out, then?

SO TAKE with a lorry load of salt the Government’s contention that even if our European ‘partners’ give visa-free access to 75 million Turks, none of them will be allowed to settle here. We have learned to our cost that while we remain members of the EU, once someone has set foot in Europe it is virtually impossible to prevent them travelling to Britain.

For the record, the Turkish community in this country is one of the most successful and best integrated, having become established over the past four decades, concentrated in North London.

Although the vast majority are Muslim, they wear their religion lightly and shun extremists. Ethnic Turks, whether from the mainland or Cyprus, have founded and run thriving businesses and have never been a burden on the State.

In fact, many of them are among the settled migrant communities in Britain who have been most adversely affected by the massive influx of newcomers from all over the world which followed Labour’s cynical decision to dynamite our border controls. But that doesn’t mean that we should be any part of a deal which encourages millions more Turks to move to Europe.

For decades, Turkey was a secular state, but in recent years it has embraced Islamism, which is the greatest threat to European civilisation and security.

It has porous borders with Syria and Iraq, and is the stopping off point both for jihadists on their way to join Izal and migrants heading for Europe. Can we have any confidence that Turkey will deliver tighter border controls to stem the relentless flow of ‘refugees’ heading our way?

Yes, they’re in the frontline of the modern wave of migration, but don’t they have a duty to protect their own borders, regardless of the final destination of the 600,000 people who cross into Turkey bound for Europe every year?

Why should we have to bribe them to do it? Turkey has long harboured an ambition to join the EU, but there remain serious doubts about its record on democracy and human rights.

It has historically been the gateway between Europe and the Islamic world. You don’t need to be a scholar to understand that, merely to have watched Rick Stein’s recent cookery adventures in Istanbul.

Whatever its merits and attractions, however, Turkey is not a European country and has no place in the EU. That doesn’t preclude friendly relations, trade agreements and other treaties.

But at a time when Western Christian, secular and liberal values are under sustained assault, often violently, who could argue with any degree of sanity that it was sensible to invite another 75 million Muslims to settle in Europe? And to bung them £2 billion into the bargain?

If Germany’s Angela Merkel and the ivory- tower Eurocrats in Brussels want to commit cultural and demographic suicide, then there’s nothing we can do to stop them. They will have to answer to their own citizens. It won’t end well for any of them. But the British Government should never have agreed to go along with it. I don’t believe this deal commands the support of the British people, including the majority of our friends and neighbours in the Turkish community here.

The truth is that EU ‘ leaders’ haven’t got a clue what to do about the Muslim invasion of Europe. They’re dancing in the dark, and this bonkers deal with Turkey is a sign of their desperation.

The only good news is that when the impact sinks in, it will be another nail in the coffin of our disastrous EU membership.

Immigration was always going to be the biggest issue in our upcoming referendum. And the day that Brussels decided to give 75 million Turkish Muslims visa-free access may well prove to be the day that finally convinced the British people it’s time to get out.