One of the most upsetting pieces of recent newsreel footage was of French police slashing a rubber dinghy containing around three dozen migrants, in shallows off the coast of Normandy.

What made the scene particularly unpleasant was the sight of a young and clearly terrified little girl at the back of the boat, overwhelmed by men crushing against her as the boat listed, forcing her into the water.

Amid the frenzy and confusion and throughout all of the shouting and recrimination by both police and migrants, no-one paid any attention to the welfare of the child.

In the days since the incident, I found myself asking a simple question that seems to strike at the very heart of the issue of illegal migration. Who, or what, made the little girl cry?

The obvious answer is that it was the police because they holed the boat, causing it to sink. But they were only doing their job, and their actions prevented a large number of migrants potentially landing, illegally, on our shores.

Then it must have been the people smugglers – shady amoral deplorables who trafficked the girl and her family across Europe and provided the boat.

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But, without willing customers, they would not have a business. There will always be people who exploit human misery and despair for profit and responsibility for ensuring that they can’t and don’t operate lies with governments.

It’s all very well trumpeting enforcement successes like this tiny operation in Normandy, conveniently filmed by BBC cameras incidentally, just days before the start of an Anglo-French summit to discuss the issue of migrant crossings.

But the fact that it took place at all signifies a failure of the system to prevent those migrants and their traffickers reaching northern France in the first........

© Herald Scotland