WHAT would be your reaction if someone told you that the best method of household management is to throw your money into the fire? This is what European politicians are now doing on a grand scale.

Last Thursday the European Union set up a fund for Africa with an initial $2bn to persuade African leaders to prevent the mass migration into Europe which, if it continues, will change the character of our continent. In plain language, this is a bribe. It comes on top of the $18bn which the EU already gives to Africa annually. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week: ”This is only a start. We have a great deal of work ahead of us.”

The leaders of the African nations must be mightily grateful. Not a bit. Mahamadou Issoufou, the President of Niger says: “The trust fund is not enough. $2billion is far from enough.” His reaction is typical.

Europe’s taxpayers have been pouring billions into Africa for decades. It would be some encouragement, at least, if we knew that our money was being well-spent. But it isn’t. Most of Africa is thoroughly corrupt and the money we give goes to pay for the luxury lifestyles of its many dictators, so that foreign aid has been described as poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries.

Nothing will stop the relentless flow of migrants into Europe. Well, it is said, they are coming here because terrorism and war in Syria is making their lives intolerable. And this is true – but only up to a point. For the fact is that most of those coming in are not from the Syrian war zone. Official estimates reveal that as many as 80 per cent of those arriving are economic migrants, coming here to improve their standard of living. I don’t blame them. Angela Merkel doesn’t blame them either. In fact a month ago she said: “Germany can take 800,000 each year for the foreseeable future.”

Then the German public let out a collective “You what, Angela!” So Frau Merkel had second thoughts. Hence the bribe – with our money. Now European governments have realised that the influx of economic migrants is unmanageable. Sweden has declared itself full, Slovenia is putting up a barbed wire fence and other countries are taking defensive measures of one sort or another. It is all too late. Indeed, the immigration crisis is unmanageable. Unfortunately, to say it is unmanageable means just that: it won’t be managed and Europe is being reduced to chaos.

You can’t put the cat back into the bag. Word has got round Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North and sub-Saharan Africa that if you manage the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean, you will not be sent back. An Italian friend told me yesterday that that country’s navy is picking up shipwrecked migrants and taking them to Italy, from where they disperse unhindered to all parts of Europe. If there had been a firm and co-ordinated policy in the EU from the start, the chaos in which we now find ourselves might have been prevented. It ought to have been made clear and enforced: no unrestricted immigration and those arriving here illegally will be sent back. But now the tide is at its flood and nothing will stop it.

Already there are reports of violence and looting from supermarkets. Small settlements of around two or three thousand people are being outnumbered and overwhelmed by migrants. Forgive me if I state the obvious: this does not bode well for justice, order and peace in Europe.