THERE’S some sort of perverse logic in trying to save Syrian refugees from drowning in the Aegean by sending them back to their own country to be blown to bits.

The government is sending Falmouth based RFA Mounts Bay and 200 Royal Marines as well as a helicopter to tackle the crisis but it all smacks as being too little too late.

Thousands upon thousands of refugees are already in Europe and even more are expected as the weather in the Mediterranean improves.

We are being forced into a deal with a dictator currently turning Turkey into a police state and being forced to turn a blind eye to its human rights abuses to get a deal to take economic migrants back, and pay them £3bn, although the country is now demanding twice that.

There is much talk of stopping the people smugglers and their callous trade in rubber boats but people must be pretty desperate to get into these death traps in the first place.

The only answer is to bring an end to the war in Syria but no-one knows how we are going to do that.

Until then the humanitarian crisis will continue.