I NOTE with interest your editorial on Theresa May’s speech this week to the Conservative Party conference (“Facts and fiction in heated debate about immigration”, The Herald, October 7, and the Agenda item by Professor Alison Phipps (“May’s plans to curb immigration amount to a descent into darkness”, The Herald, October 8).
One is entitled to ask when the British public bought into the levels of immigration into this country which we have been experiencing over many years. It was certainly not a prominent part of the terms which were negotiated to join the EEC during the Ted Heath administration of 1970-74. Those terms undoubtedly contained poor financial conditions and did a particular disservice to the fishermen of the UK. It is questionable that the British people were ever given the full picture, both then and in the subsequent referendum, held during the administration of Harold Wilson in 1975. The far-reaching consequences for the national independence of the UK of such membership were not coherently and comprehensively spelled out, particularly for loss of sovereignty, our legal systems, and the free movement of labour.
Moreover, in 2013 Peter Mandelson, a prominent member of the Labour Government until 2010, admitted that Labour had deliberately engineered mass immigration. Indeed, they sent out “search parties” for immigrants to get them to come to the UK. Between 1997 and 2010 net migration to Britain was more than 2.2 million, more than twice the population of Birmingham. When did the British people buy into this?
It is, of course, essential in this debate that we should not lose sight of the fact that life in Britain, over many generations, has been enhanced, enlivened and improved by the intake of people from abroad and also the fact that many people originally from Britain have made a lifestyle choice and decided to reside abroad. Surely, however, it is not unreasonable for many UK citizens to have formed the conclusion that the unprecedented scale of immigration, the likelihood of which they were never ever seriously consulted about, is stressing the country’s resources, particularly in relation to health, education, welfare, and accommodation. Surely, it is not unreasonable for concern to be expressed, not about the principle of immigration, which has been well established in Britain for hundreds of years, but about the levels of it, without those expressing such concerns being subjected to emotive and pejorative language.
Ian W Thomson,
38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.
THE UK's being faced with a few tens of thousands of non-EU migrants (Scotland's share perhaps a tenth) is overshadowed to say the least by Germany's predicament. A very recent estimate for the latter is for 1.5 million incomers this year alone, likely to be followed, some think, by between four and eight family members each. A grand total of perhaps seven million in a short time, all wanting anything better than what they are leaving behind.
This pattern will be repeated to a lesser or even greater extent for possibly a generation as originating countries' populations continue to burgeon, lacking the provision of facilities broadly to cater for their own growth.
The inevitable consequence is dilution of the recipient host's culture, as integration on such a scale without effect is impossible. Most European nations will also experience the like, and it looks as though societies' Christian natures will be forever modified. There is an incongruity in that Christians are being eased out in many of the countries from which the migrants originate.
Where it will all end is unclear, pumping money into the rapid development of the originating nations could ease matters but it takes time to get results. Migrant flow is not going to stop any time soon, and they simply cannot all be absorbed by Europe even with the highest humanitarian intentions.
Joe Darby,
Glenburn, St Martins Mill, Cullicudden, Dingwall.
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