Howard's asylum policy

Dreadful though I feel in saying this I cannot in all conscience agree with the Conservative asylum policy. For economic immigration I can see a certain amount of justification for an Australian-style points system. On asylum though I am a little shocked.

I'll be absolutely honest, and admit right off that immigration, and refugees to the extent they overlap, are not subjects which get my blood flowing. I find it really hard to get worked up either way and it normally takes a pretty extreme view to get me talking on the topic.

The current proposal on the table though shocks me. It is genuinely Michael Howard's plan to, in effect, accept unlimited numbers of economic migrants from within the EU - from France, Poland and Estonia - yet to turn away genuine refugees back to war, torture and oppression they have fleed from. In all conscience that is not a policy I could stomach. Of course, there's a balance to be reached but I'm not convinced that unilateral Government quotas on refugees are the way to go.