Let would-be migrants in, as we have done for generations

THE 2011 Census recorded that there were 7.5 million foreign-born residents in the UK, corresponding to 11.9 per cent of the total population. A 2010 estimate suggested that 4.76 million (7.7 per cent) were born outside the EU and 2.24 million (3.6 per cent) were born in another EU member state. The 2015 Government briefing paper states: “In 2013, there were 23,584 applications for asylum in the UK, covering 29,875 people comprising asylum seekers and their dependants. In the same year, immigration was approximately 526,000. The Office for National Statostics estimates that asylum seekers were around 4.6 per cent of immigration in 2013”. Seen against a background of these figures the few thousand highly motivated migrants trying to enter the UK via the French channel ports is literally a drop in the ocean (UK and France to increase security after migrant dies”, The Herald, July 30).

One comes to the inescapable conclusion that all the disruption to cross-channel traffic the expense and the fatalities is simply the Government trying to show it can manage a system that is patently shambolic. It is ironic that it is happening at the time of year that London suffers it annual invasion of wealthy Arab oil multi-millionaires escaping the rigours of Ramadan back home. As usual there appear to be no borders or barriers is you can afford to bring your Swarovoski crystal-encrusted Ferrari with you. Perhaps rather than spending £7m on trying to keep these 3,000 potential immigrants out of the UK it would be better and cheaper just to eliminate the problem by giving them a UK/EU passport and £2,000 each to support them till they found a job, as those who came before them seem to have done.