Weaponising misery

TO deter the migrants massing in Belarus from breaching the EU’s eastern border, Brussels plans to rip up its asylum laws.

The nations bearing the brunt of this human tide could lock up would-be refugees while assessing their claims. Those refusing to seek sanctuary in such safe countries should ‘go home’, say Eurocrats.

These ideas are entirely sensible (and ones Britain should emulate). But they are full of sickening irony.

For on the bloc’s western boundary, France – another perfectly safe haven – is turning a blind eye to smuggled migrants who risk their lives crossing the Channel.

Both Belarus’s repressive regime and Emmanuel Macron are weaponising refugee misery. How shameful the EU denounces the former – and ignores the latter.