THE latest tragedy in the English Channel ("509 people crossed the English Channel on day six died in boat sinking", The Herald, August 14) underlines the need to urgently establish a system of viable, safe routes for refugees from countries like Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. The tactics adopted by the Home Office are not stopping "the boats". A different approach is needed.
People-smuggling was built on the backs of governments blocking safe passage. By providing safe, humanitarian routes, we will break the people smugglers' business model and prevent human beings from risking their lives crossing the world's busiest shipping lane.
Sadly, Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak prefer to ferment panic instead of dealing with the backlog of asylum claims, which now stands at more than 172,000. The Home Secretary has ruled herself incompetent because of this latest tragedy, which comes on the back of the news that contractors knew that the Bibby Stockholm was infected with Legionella; her crocodile condolences are sickening.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian war refugees have arrived here because the UK Government provided safe humanitarian routes. They have travelled through multiple safe countries to get here and are welcomed; many go back and forward to Ukraine to visit loved ones. We know this from the Ukrainians we support through our Room for Refugees hosting programme.
Yet when brown and black refugees travel through France to get here, they are treated with hostility and vitriol. Sadly, the press rarely calls out this differential treatment: welcoming Ukrainians while beating the Government's drum of "stop the boats" and "illegal immigrants" when it comes to people of colour. It is bare-faced racism.
The refugee crisis is not going away. Human beings move. Deal with it. Better to build viable and credible safe routes that refugees will trust. Better to process the backlog of asylum claims waiting for a decision. Better to let people work while they wait and collect some taxes and let them pay their own way.
Robina Qureshi, CEO, Positive Action in Housing, Glasgow.
Read more: Refugee problem is down to failings of UK Government
What are the French doing?
I READ daily of migrants attempting to cross from France to Britain in the hope of a better life. I am also aware that this is a massive problem for the Government, trying to process them, feed them and find suitable accommodation. All this at a massive cost to the Government and ultimately ourselves through tax.
I now learn that we are going to be giving the French Government £500 million for extra patrols to prevent migrants crossing the Channel in totally inadequate and grossly overloaded boats.
My question is: what is the French Government doing?
The migrants arrive at the camps, no housing provided for them, the bare minimum of food and deplorable sanitation. It is no wonder that they risk their lives to reach sanctuary in Britain.
Neil Stewart, Balfron.
How things have changed
HOW the Axis powers with their huge navies (Russia, China, North Korea and Iran) – to a large extent financed by the naive West – must laugh at the apparent inability of the British and French navies, and politicians, to control and defend a short stretch of coastline in the world's busiest shipping lane from venal people-traffickers overloading rubber dinghies with asylum seekers.
Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, of Dunkirk, Sicily, North Africa and D-Day fame, must be turning in his grave.
John Birkett, St Andrews.
The truth about health spending
AT the Edinburgh Book Festival Wes Streeting claimed taxpayer money funds the NHS ("Shadow health secretary says challenge ‘daunting’ if Labour win", The Herald, August 14). Politicians repeat this so often that it’s no wonder people take it as gospel. The truth neither the Tories nor Labour want you to know is that the UK Government can spend as much as is necessary to fund public services because it has its own bank and is the sole currency issuer.
The other truth they want to conceal is that every pound spent on health generates £4 in economic growth. It’s called the health multiplier because healthy people are able to work. Put simply, spending on health is an investment, not a cost. Improving the nation’s health enhances the nation’s wealth.
Long-term illness decreases employment, median income and economic output per person. The number of long-term sick in the UK has been rising steadily, with nearly 2.5 million working-age people off work. Investing in the NHS leads to lower A&E visits and non-elective admissions and increases workforce participation.
Scotland spends more on health per person and has more doctors, nurses, midwives and dentists than in any other UK nation. But we aren’t as good as we could be. As part of the UK we lack the power to adequately invest in our people’s health and other public services which are the foundation of economic prosperity.
A Labour government won’t stop the rot because it pledges to extend the policies that have resulted in the UK being the most unequal G7 country apart from the US. For Scotland, the only alternative to continuing decline is independence.
Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh.
This futile blame game
DO you bite the hand that feeds you? Hard on the heels of some authors wanting Baillie Gifford, a major sponsor of the Edinburgh Book Festival, to pull out and in return possibly finish off the Book Festival itself (Letters, August 14) we now have charities demanding action on climate change ("Charities accuse parties on climate impact", The Herald, August 14).
This is becoming a round-robin blame game but the people in the middle are ordinary citizens just trying to cope with life's problems. There is no easy solution, but banning fossil fuel is just impossible with our current technology and banning sponsorship at the Edinburgh Festival just hurts other authors.
The rise of the protest group mirrors the rise of protest political parties like the SNP and Greens. All talk but little or no positive results only disruption. A calmer approach with scientific rationale will get us there. Carrots, not sticks.
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
Read more: Kate Forbes says she 'dodged a bullet' by losing SNP leadership race
We dodged a bullet with Forbes
I FOUND Tom Gordon's article on Kate Forbes at the Fringe ("Forbes says she ‘dodged a bullet’ when she lost SNP leadership race", The Herald, August 12) quite intriguing. Ms Forbes said she felt she had "dodged a bullet" in losing the SNP leadership contest. At the same event, LBC political editor Gina Davidson live-tweeted much of the discussion. I was disappointed, though not surprised, to find Ms Forbes echoing a lot of the anti-abortion rhetoric that is currently being propagated by the American religious right.
Her use of phrases like "both lives matter" and her dissemination of myths about abortion being employed as a tool of coercion seems to be directly borrowed from the American playbook. While it is true that reproductive coercion is a problem, Ms Forbes's portrayal of it is inaccurate. The National Domestic Violence Hotline defines reproductive coercion as a range of behaviours, including actions like refusing to use or removing a condom (known as stealthing), attempting to hinder a partner from accessing an abortion, or exposing that they've undergone an abortion. Certainly, this form of abuse might encompass pressuring a partner into having an abortion, but the prevailing messaging from the religious right implies that most abortions are the result of coercion - an idea that forms part of their new strategy to appear less misogynistic.
These falsehoods also perpetuate the unfounded conspiracy of the "abortion industry", which becomes even more nonsensical within the context of the NHS, where staff are salaried and have no financial incentives tied to specific forms of care. This line of thinking is particularly offensive when we consider that NHS midwives are trained to converse with patients in private to ensure that decisions regarding abortions are entirely the patients' and that they are free from any external pressure. Furthermore, these healthcare professionals inquire about domestic abuse because pregnancy is the most precarious time in a woman's life for encountering violence and abuse, often occurring for the first time during pregnancy.
Given the current climate, where women in the UK have faced imprisonment for procuring their own abortions and Scotland is still bound by abortion laws crafted seven decades ago, having anything other than a staunchly pro-choice first minister poses a potential risk. The anti-abortion movement has grown bolder since the overturning of Roe v Wade. Kate Forbes has made it abundantly clear that she is not supportive of abortion. In truth, it is the women (and LGBTQ+ community) of Scotland who have dodged a bullet.
Gemma Clark, Johnstone.
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