Just imagine that I’d written a column last week claiming that the Government had issued official advice asking asylum seekers not to rape women and children. You’d be forgiven for thinking I’d made it up.

Steady on, Rich, that’s going a bit far – even for you.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. The Home Office has published a seven-page booklet aimed at migrants, spelling out the law on sexual consent. It’s backed up by cartoon-style posters in asylum centres and hotels.

They are warned that domestic violence is illegal and harassing women in public, including wolf-whistling, and making ‘kissing sounds’ and offensive gestures, is unacceptable – even if intended as a compliment.

The pamphlet, entitled Understanding Behaviours And Expectations In The UK: A Guide For Asylum Seekers, is expected to be made available in dozens of foreign languages, many of them scribble.

It comes in the wake of almost daily reports of rapes and sexual assaults by migrants, including some of the tens of thousands of single young men who have crossed the Channel illegally.

Two Afghans appeared in court today charged with raping a 14-year-old girl on a London-bound train, which they deny.

The Home Office has published a seven-page booklet aimed at migrants, spelling out the law on sexual consent

The document warns that failing to abide by these laws could affect your asylum claim... 'With emphasis on "could", obviously,' our columnist adds

The booklet states, in sympathetic terms: ‘We understand that coming to a new country can be difficult, and that laws and customs here may be different from your home country.’ You can say that again.

Talk about a statement of the bleedin’ obvious. The bulk of these so-called ‘asylum seekers’ – in reality, economic migrants who have paid a small fortune to people smugglers – hail from backward cultures with medieval attitudes towards women and homosexuals.

It goes on to warn that if anyone is guilty of rape, sexual assault or harassment, they could ‘go to prison, lose your support and accommodation, and it could affect your asylum claim’. With the emphasis on ‘could’, obviously.

Believe that when it happens. Only this week, an Italian immigrant, jailed for raping a woman in 2017 while she was drunk and unconscious, was granted leave to remain after a judge accepted he had ‘learned his lessons’.

This case has been dragging on for nine long years. And if we can’t deport a criminal to a ‘safe’ country like Italy, what are the chances anyone will be sent back to a hell-hole like Eritrea? Less than zero, especially while we remain under the jurisdiction of the pernicious European human rights convention.

The fact is none of these foreign sexual predators should be here in the first place. Yet their ‘yuman rites’ always take precedence over the rights of British citizens to live our lives in peace.

This insane booklet is a long-overdue admission by the Government that our reckless open borders policy poses a clear and present danger to the safety of women and girls in particular.

Until now, anyone pointing this out – or demonstrating about thousands of unknown, undocumented, young foreign men being dumped on their doorsteps – has been routinely smeared as ‘racist’ and ‘far-Right’.

It comes after reports of rapes and sexual assaults by migrants, including some of the tens of thousands of single young men who have crossed the Channel illegally

'Andy Burnham has pledged to eradicate rough sleeping by Christmas. A laudable aim,' writes Littlejohn, 'But he would rather fill up HMOs [multiple occupancy homes] with asylum seekers’

But this is the Looking Glass World which has been imposed upon us. Law-abiding, taxpaying British citizens always come last under Labour.

This Government’s priorities appear to be modelled on Cher’s 1971 worldwide smash hit, Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves.

Angry Ginge Rayner this week announced that rules allowing travellers’ camps to be sited in areas where other developments are banned were to be relaxed. There are plans for 900 new static caravan pitches in London alone, according to mayor Genghis Khan. Loony Left Islington is putting a travellers’ site on land previously earmarked for a community centre and affordable homes.

Not that travellers have ever been troubled by planning laws. Every Bank Holiday weekend they manage to construct permanent villages on farmland without planning permission while the council officers are putting their feet up. And they are rarely ever moved on. Meanwhile, those who have gone through the system and obtained planning approval can be forced to demolish their properties because the roof is a few inches too high, or an extension a couple of feet too wide.

Andy Burnham has pledged to eradicate rough sleeping by Christmas. A laudable aim, particularly as some of these rough sleepers are ex-servicemen fallen on hard times. But many of them don’t want his help. We used to call them ‘tramps’.

And a great many of the so-called ‘homeless’ cluttering up the streets of London and our other cities are foreign nationals – including Roma gypsies from Eastern Europe, bringing with them their valuable begging and pickpocketing skills.

The genuine, indigenous homeless could comfortably be accommodated in hotels or specially modified HMOs (Homes in Multiple Occupation) springing up everywhere.

But Burnham would rather fill up HMOs with ‘asylum seekers’ and wants even more of them opened in middle-class areas, despite fierce local opposition.

As for thieves, Labour is emptying the jails of hardened criminals on early release. Shoplifting – as we used to call it – has effectively been decriminalised, along with mobile phone theft. As Peter Hitchens wrote in the Mail today, when the politicians tell you crime is falling who you gonna believe: Official statistics or your lying eyes?

Some of the worst crimes are committed by so-called ‘asylum seekers’ from Stone Age societies who have no earthly right to be here. And still they keep on coming.

Our Government’s response: a fancy booklet asking them if they wouldn’t mind awfully not abusing our hospitality by sexually assaulting women and girls.

To Labour’s list of favoured client groups, Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, we can now add rapists, child abusers and wife beaters.

You couldn’t make it up.