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Letter: The UK Cannot Re-house All That Wish to Come Here
Published on: 18 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 18 Nov, 2019
Zoe Franklin interview
From Ben Paton
In response to: Dragon Interview: Zoe Franklin, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate
The evidence for migration is set out on by Migration Watch, for those interested in the facts.
In 1916 there were around 2 billion people on the planet. Today there are some 7.5bn. That’s a more than threefold increase in the space of one lifetime.
Over the same period, there has been a commensurate and devastating loss of biodiversity.
Many people live in places where traditional agriculture has been destroyed by climate change and others live in corrupt and repressive regimes.
It is not sustainable to seek to re-house the many millions of economic and climate change refugees in the UK.
Syrian refugees may be representative. When asked, most would have preferred to stay at home.
The EU’s foreign policy has not helped. It has contributed to de-stabilising many countries bordering Europe, such as Ukraine.
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Responses to Letter: The UK Cannot Re-house All That Wish to Come Here
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Chris Williams
November 18, 2019 at 7:40 pm
I fear that free movement of EU migrants has closed the historical acceptance the United Kingdom has had for refugees in real need of help. I suspect that the increased population of foreigners, be they EU or other, has put pressure on our infrastructure and systems to an extent where any outsider is being classed by some people as being one too many.
The legitimate EU migrants have contributed greatly to us all, and I hope and believe we all welcome them with open arms. My fear is that the UK has changed its welcome to those in more immediate need of rescue from the torture and political threats they face back home. To some extent, I suspect this is due to the public sentiment that immigration is too high for our infrastructure.
Give me the choice of allowing in an immigrant who has escaped torture due to political beliefs versus an economic migrant and I would choose the first out of the two. It does not mean I do not approve of economic migrants; they are valuable to our country and are lovely people from my experience.
But our moral compass has to overrule our wallets, and our EU neighbours, on this issue. I believe that controlling economic migration from the EU will allow us to be as open, as we have been historically, to political immigrants.
John Schluter
November 19, 2019 at 12:38 am
What a biased letter from Ben Paton.
Migration Watch operates out of 55 Tufton Street, London SW1. That address is also home to such diverse and “impartial” organisations as the Taxpayer’s Alliance and Leave Means Leave as well as Nigel Lawson’s climate-change denial group, Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Strangely, Mr Paton seems to blame climate change for destroying much of the world’s agriculture. Immigration officials do not seem to record this as a valid reason for claiming asylum.
I am also not sure there are “many millions of economic and climate change refugees” wishing to relocate to the UK, so perhaps he could provide checkable evidence of these hungry hordes massing across the Channel?
I would also be interested to learn which of the EU’s foreign policies contributed to destabilising countries such as Ukraine and exactly what happened there and when, if at all?
Jim Allen
November 19, 2019 at 3:02 pm
I fear the simplistic claim that “immigration is a good thing” is misguided.
Whether immigrants are political escapee’s, who should, under international conventions, apply for asylum at first safe country, or economic migrants who may be de-skilling their own countries workforce, immigration is not good for our local environment because of the extra demands more people create.
The rate of migration is also important for social cohesion. If it is too high ghettos are more likely to form and can become, in effect, no go areas for other ethnicities; Southall, Leicester and Bradford are three examples of communities where there is some segregation by choice.
So immigration at a reasonable rate is good, but we should be allowed to bear in mind our requirements first before compounding the problems caused by overpopulation, lack of infrastructure and the impact on our culture and heritage rather than a drive to open borders and multiculturalism.