There are two kinds of people alive today; the manipulators and the manipulated.

It is important to realise how we are manipulated and recognise it when we see it. In this essay only one method will be considered because it is easy to see.

There is an old saying; ‘the end justifies the means’. This encapsulates a very real problem, but the fact that the expression is so well known and easy to understand has in a way, bled the life blood from it. But if it was not still full of meaning, there would not be so many examples of it.

For instance; a world leader wishes to invade a neighbouring state. There are various reasons which might be; historical, to obtain economic gain, to bring freedom to enslaved inhabitants, to eliminate a threat of war, to change a bad government for a good one etc.

All or just some of these reasons are used to persuade a population of a moral need. Then comes the twist. In order to achieve the aim, means are used which are far more destructive than the supposed problem being eliminated.

President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an obvious example but let us look nearer to home, to that bastion of fairness and reasonableness, the United Kingdom.

Politicians promise to solve problems. In this case they promised to ‘take back control of our borders’ in the 2016 referendum on Brexit. A minority right wing party, UKIP, perceived ‘immigration’ as being ‘out of control’ and having a detrimental effect on the standard of living. This despite the economic rule that immigration is beneficial to a country and the history of United States of America being a prime example.

But ordinary people do not have degrees in economics and the far right politicians are well known to pick a ‘scape goat’ cause for a problem; the Nazi policies towards minorities in 1930’s Germany being a prime example.

All nations have problems with land borders. They are hard to control. But an island nation should have an advantage and so it should be with the UK. Given this ‘false problem’ of immigration, how can the government ‘take back control of it’s borders’?

A degree of problem solving skill is needed, a faculty that is not unfortunately taught in schools and universities, including it appears, Eton; one of the most expensive private (fee paying) schools in the UK.

It was thought that if the UK could stop people wanting to come to the UK from their own failing countries, a solution would be to stop their country from failing. This megalomaniac assumption suggest that a minor world power is able to solve problems in other countries.

Unfortunately, two thirds of the countries from which people flee to the UK are not in the European Union; countries like Afghanistan.

So voting to ‘take back control of our borders’ would largely, not be solved by leaving the European Union. La di dah.

In the case of Afghanistan, large amounts of money and human life had already been lost in trying to prop up an Afghan government and Army. History shows that complex tribal nations are almost impossible for successful intervention by third party states, and so it was in Afghanistan. The Americans decided to pull out their support, the Afghan government and Army collapsed and the power vacuum was taken over by the Taliban.

So it is obvious that removing the need to flee from a country is not in the power of any one nation or even a United Nations.

The rules of asylum state that this must be done in the first safe country entered. This however is absurd as a single country cannot reasonably take all the refugees from a neighbouring country, once a certain number has been reached. Italy is a good example where refugees from Tunisia arrive in boats in such numbers that the government cannot cope.

The European Union must take some of the blame for not taking an overview of it’s member states and allocating refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in proportion to their ability to do so. Germany has taken a disproportionately large number compared to other EU nations, while Italy is begging for help. The problem perhaps was instrumental in the election of a right wing government there.

But let us return to the UK. Having voted to lose all influence over European Union policy by leaving, it weakened it’s influence in the countries through which immigrants pass. France is a prime example and now has to be given money by the UK to carry out border controls on the north coast of France, most of which will be ineffective as the majority of traffickers operate from the UK.

The problem is never clearly defined, as ‘immigrants’ have varied motives. The economic migrants used to help with harvesting seasonal crops in the UK and those have largely ceased to do this; crops have rotted in the fields as a result. Young Albanians work in the UK illegally and return with amounts of money that it would take decades for them to earn in Albania.

Genuine asylum seekers are not given safe routes by the UK government, excepting Ukrainians and Afghans for whom there is a system on line to get a visa.

Instead of extending this humane approach to all asylum seekers, who make up 80% of ‘illegal immigrants’, the UK government have put forward another idea.

This ‘means to an end’ is intended to be so harsh that it will dissuade those seeking asylum, many of whom are forced to arrive in unsuitable small boats on UK beaches. The government’s idea is to treat them all as having entered the country ‘illegally’ and to send them to a third country; Rwanda.

In doing so the government of the UK are choosing to ignore the human rights of the asylum seekers and ignore the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, of which the UK is still a member (even though many who voted for Brexit did not realise this political independence of the ECHR).

Ironic that the UK had done much to promote Human Rights within the European Parliament when it had influence to do so.

Instead their ‘solution’ to immigration by asylum seekers is to class them as criminals for entering the UK illegally, and sending them to Rwanda.

Here, clearly, the end is being used to justify the means for if anyone should question why this policy is being followed the reply by government politicians such as the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is words to the effect, ‘would you rather they drown?’

By concentrating the emotional decision on the horror of women and children drowning in a cold sea, the appeal to the faculties of their opponents is not rational but emotional.

The rational ‘problem solving’ has been skipped over and a ‘solution’ being tried that mostly works politically. Is it not rather being seen to act on an election promise in readiness general election next year?

What will happen to immigrants once they arrive in Rwanda is hardly advertised. No doubt the Rwandans have been given money as other advantages to their nation are doubtful. At worst the money supply will stop in a few years after a change of government and the Rwandans will get their machetes out again.

Thus it can be seen that horror and inhumanity is being ‘justified’ as being the only solution to ‘saving people from drowning in boats in the English Channel’.

The tail is most certainly wagging the dog and this is how our own thoughts can be manipulated to think what is happening is ‘okay’. Bad things are ‘justified’ as ‘an evil to stop a worse evil’. In reality, it’s an evil instead of a humane solution.

Should we not be instructing the problem solvers in ‘problem solving’? The books of Edward de Bono have been used by business leaders to teach this skill and the reader is recommended to study them if a life in politics is being considered.