Illegal immigrants blockade Greek/Macedonian border

Illegal immigrants in Greece have blocked a border crossing into Macedonia, demanded to see ID cards and told Greeks they aren't allowed to pass.

The border crossing at Idomeni is home to 154 Greeks and 10,000 illegal immigrants trying to illegally make their way across Europe to countries like Germany, Sweden and the UK who offer the best benefits.

Left wing agitators were seen supplying the illegal immigrants with food to enable them to keep up their illegal blockade.

Thousands of illegal immigrants storm Macedonian border

Thousands of illegal immigrants ferried to the mainland by the Greek government have stormed the Macedonian border.

Many of those that have managed to force their way through police and military lines are escaping Syria but others have come from relatively stable countries such as Pakistan and are simply taking advantage of the opportunity to get into Europe.

The Macedonian army attempted to allow a group of 600 people with small children across the border to catch a train to Serbia where they would then go on to Hungary before making their way to France, Germany and eventually the UK. But while they tried to give safe passage to those high risk illegal immigrants, thousands of others stormed the border.

Since the EU stopped the practice of intercepting boats carrying illegal immigrants and sending them back to where they started off, the number of illegal immigrants coming to Europe has exploded as economic migrants take advantage of the relaxing of border controls and mingle with asylum seekers looking for safety.

Under international law, asylum seekers are required to claim asylum in the first safe country they enter. With the exception of those entering Europe from the volatile north African coast, every asylum seeker is illegally and should be sent back to the first safe country they entered but EU rules don't allow member states to deport illegal asylum seekers to other EU member states because that undermines the EU pretending to be a single country.

The Macedonian government is blaming the Greek government for ferrying thousands of illegal immigrants from the islands onto the mainland.

Illegal immigrants rush riot police in Macedonia

Macedonia has become the latest country to face the tide of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Macedonian riot police used truncheons, tear gas and razor wire to try and stop illegal immigrants travelling through Macedonia to get to Hungary where they can then travel without border checks to large swathes of the EU that stupidly signed up to the Schengen Treaty.

Over 40,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers have been registered illegally entering Macedonia from Greece in the last two months. Most of them have gone on to Serbia and then into Hungary where the border is being fortified to prevent them getting any further.

Almost 50,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers came from Turkey to Greece alone in July, bringing the total to 158,000 for the year. Another 90,000 have made it to Italy and the total estimate for the year so far is around 340,000. That's a city the size of Leicester making its way into Europe in just 7 months. If it continues at the same rate then by the end of the year that's a city the size of Nottingham and Leicester combined.

EU grants official candidate status to Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia

The economic geniuses on the continent have finally found the answer to all our financial problems - they're giving official candidate status to Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.

Official candidate status means the EU accepts the idea of their membership in principal and paves the way for an official application to join.  Kosovo is the second poorest country in Europe, Albania the fourth and Macedonia the sixth poorest.  They're poorer than Greece which has already had a couple of bailouts and is impossibly bankrupt.  Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Cyprus - all of them having had a bailout or on the brink of having one - will all have to pay more into the coffers (as will we of course) to bail out Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia from day one.  It's perverse!

The decision is a contentious one for more reasons than the utter insanity of taking in the poorest countries in Europe and pledging to spend billions on them every year to stop them failing.  The EU is referring to Macedonia as Macedonia when the Greeks insist on them being called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in case calling them Macedonia legitimises a claim the Macedonians haven't even made to the Greek province of Macedonia.  It's like the Americans insisting on calling England the Former British Republic of England in case we decided to lay a claim to the state of New England.  Whether the Greek government objects to this will be an indication of the extent of EU control over the Greek vichy government.  And as for Kosovo - Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain don't even recognise Kosovo as an independent state but the EU's own lawyers have concluded that it doesn't matter if a fifth of EU member states don't recognise Kosovo, they can go ahead and conclude treaties with them anyway.

The EU Foreign Affairs Committee didn't just stop at granting Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia candidate status to show their detachment from reality - they also criticised the lack of progress of the Icelandic application for EU membership.  Romanian MEP Cristian Preda said "the progress does not reflect the feelings of the Icelanders about the enlargement".  Domnu Preda is correct - opinion polls in Iceland show that something like 70% of Icelanders are opposed to EU membership and Icelandic business leaders are similarly cool to the idea so far from progressing the application, it should have been abandoned long ago or even better, not even started.