THERE has been much reference to the question of immigration during the ongoing debate leading up to the EU referendum later this month. The Conservative Government of today is attracting much criticism of its efforts to exercise effective controls.

We should not overlook the legacy left by the Labour governments in power from 1997 to 2010. Labour had set its mind, for a variety of reasons, on a policy priority in favour of high levels of immigration. This it achieved as a result of factors such as abolishing the primary purpose rule, which was a regulation adopted by the Home Office to prevent false marriages being used as a means to come into the UK. Under that regulation naturalised immigrants, seeking to marry someone from abroad, had to show that the primary purpose was genuinely to marry and not merely an avenue to allow a non-resident to come and live in this country.

And the Immigration and Nationality Directorate under the Labour administrations was unable to handle efficiently the large volume of asylum applications, not all of which were genuine. Indeed, the Directorate attracted the description of being dysfunctional.

Labour permitted entry to the UK from the eight countries which joined the EU in 2004. A number of other EU countries adopted the available mechanism of placing a seven-year delay on allowing nationals from those eight countries entering to work. At the time Tony Blair announced “there is no obvious upper limit on migration”.

As a result, between 1997 and 2010, net annual immigration quadrupled and the population of our country increased by more than 2.2 million. I believe that much of the British population is prepared to accept that immigration can be regarded as a force for enrichment and invigoration. However, many have concluded that the numbers have increased at too quick a pace in a comparatively short period of time. The part played by the Labour governments of 1997-2010 in getting us to where we are today should not be dismissed nor forgotten.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.

RICHARD Mowbray (Letters, June 9) makes many good points when he attacks the Remain Campaign but like the arguments put forward by the Leave Campaign, there is little substance to them. Both sides have thrown around vague statistics and opinions, which when fully analysed, are merely supposition and scaremongering.

No one really knows what will happen if the UK decides to leave. Will Europe impose import and export restrictions on the UK? I don’t know. Will the rest of the world greet the UK with open arms, and allow us to trade openly without restrictions? I don’t know. Will we have to get visas to travel to continental Europe for a city break? I don’t know that one either. To be so informed about issues which cannot be clarified does show an amazing clarity. Macbeth’s Three Witches would be impressed.

I, for one, will be voting to remain in the EU. For all its faults, it has benefited millions of people in its time, and allowed people to experience different cultures and attitudes. To run away from a club because you don’t like the rules everyone else has agreed on is, in my opinion, childish and selfish.

JP Anglim,

Queensborough Gardens, Hyndland, Glasgow.

JIM Lynch (Letters, June 8) says that he has more faith in our chances with the EU.

There are some 800 MEPs in the European Parliament, representing all the countries of the EU.

I challenge Mr Lynch to name any of these faceless members who make laws and policies affecting our country. It would also be interesting to hear of the qualities of these multinational MEPs which makes them more qualified than our own MPs or MSPs to make decisions on the government and laws of either the UK or Scotland. Scotland "Better Together" with Brussels? Really?

Ian Jones,

28 Faulds Wynd, Seamill.

AS the opinion polls tighten (“Scottish pro-EU lead could evaporate, finds poll”, The Herald, June 9), am I alone in wondering what will happen if the UK decides to remain in the European Union due entirely to the way people vote in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Does anyone expect such a result to be greeted quietly?

Russell Galbraith,

73 Norwood Park, Bearsden.

MOST Leave campaigners are arch free-marketers. That's the approach to economics that is so ideological it failed to predict the banking crisis and recession of 2008. That approach has gloried in the weakening of trade unions, the driving down of wages and erosion of workers' rights in the name of more competitive enterprise.

Don't think they care if the packet of bacon is 30p dearer after exit. Don't think they care if there is a run on the pound (made possible by the free market love affair with allowing capital to move freely). Their mantra is “the free market works things out for the best”.

Don't think they care if there are some firms who leave the UK (the free market theory states it is good to have a pool of unemployed people who will take low wage jobs). They claim Europe with its social chapter is undemocratic. The lesson of history is that when you have a partisan sensational right wing press (as we have) a country's democracy is poor and fragile (study Germany before Hitler).

So these free marketers don't care if the British economy and our trading partners in Europe are badly hit by exit. While academic economists are moving away from total faith in the free market and are aware of how vulnerable the free movement of capital and the recession had made us to further decline, our free market politicians glory on, while agreeing with Margaret Thatcher's dictum that “there is no such thing as society”.

Andrew Vass,

24 Corbiehill Place,

Edinburgh.