Don’t vilify asylum seekers – tackle the root causes of immigration

The latest tragedy in the English Channel is heartwrenching and illustrates the magnitude of the humanitarian catastrophe caused by desperate people seeking asylum.

As well as addressing the flaws in the asylum system, the international community must urgently target the root cause of the world’s seething conflicts, poverty and illiteracy, otherwise the migrant crisis triggered by the flow of refugees, which leads to these terrible tragedies, will continue.

Atul M Karnik

Woodside, US

On the one hand, the UK has an ageing population and suffers from dire shortages of nurses, carers, GPs, HGV drivers, butchers, agricultural workers, waiters... you name it. On the other hand there are thousands of young, able-bodied men and women, often with the skills and qualifications we are so short of, fleeing wars and tyrannical regimes and desperate to find a safe haven here and contribute to our society.

It takes a peculiar ideological blindness not to be able to put two and two together.

D Maughan Brown

York

In post-Second World War Britain, the 1948 British Nationality Act was an inspired piece of legislation to attract workers to fill the many vacancies in British industry at the time. It’s a matter of fact that these half a million immigrants made a significant contribution to the UK’s growth and success at that time.

Again, with labour shortages, we need extra young and working-age members of society to work, grow our industry, pay taxes and build society. The parallels are obvious. Theresa May’s (and subsequent Home Secretaries’) “hostile environment” to immigrants seeks to not only hold back our recovery now but also puts a massive stain on the success of the post-war exercises. Creating legal immigration routes for refugees, workers and their families is not just a moral case; it’s a sound economic one.

Hedley Baldwin

Address supplied

Time and time again when faced with difficult questions, government ministers obfuscate. It matters not whether this involves transport and the supply chain, responses to the pandemic, or, indeed, anything. The latest example is the claim that the withdrawal of the invitation to Priti Patel to attend a multinational meeting to discuss the migrant crisis does not mean that France and the UK aren’t cooperating, implying that all is well in cross-Channel relations.

What this Conservative government doesn’t realise is that the continual (or is it continuous?) refusal to acknowledge reality brings with it growing worry among the public that there is no understanding in the corridors of power. Among other things, this has severely eroded our collective trust in the government.

Ian Reid

Kilnwick

We’ve just seen Boris Johnson publish a letter that he foolishly thought would win him support in the UK without pausing for a moment to think how the French would react to being forewarned of his simplistic strategy of blaming the French. Once the French knew this, it didn’t take a genius to realise that either UK or France would have to back down; they decided diplomacy wasn’t on the agenda so there was no point in meeting.

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It puts one in mind of Ms May’s Brexit negotiations where megaphone politics aimed at the UK with “no deal is better than a bad deal” forewarned the EU of what we preferred: no deal. So they gave us the alternative we put on the table: a bad deal. Our inability to return migrants under the Dublin agreement demonstrates what this looks like; real negotiations would have avoided this.

Is it just Tories or is it a British failure to understand how diplomacy works and the art of negotiation?

John simpson

Ross on Wye

Is Boris Johnson’s ill-judged letter to President Macron the final nail in his prime ministerial coffin? The almost daily round of mistakes the man has made surely cannot pass notice by even the most enthusiastic of his supporters?

The Rev Andrew McLuskey

Middlesex

Why can’t Boris Johnson and his ministers stop winding up the French and other EU allies? The government is trashing our international reputation, which will make it much more difficult for us to sign trade deals even with the wider world. How much more stupid and short/sighted can this administration get?

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

Kate Townshend’s article (‘Stella Creasy is a mother and a public servant – oh, the horror!’, Voices, 25 November) argues for the wrong solution to the problem of juggling childcare and a career. If I walked into my workplace and saw a new parent trying to work and look after a baby, I would question whether my employer was doing enough to support them rather than celebrating their right to walk around with a child.

It is important to encourage as diverse a group as possible into politics. If we want to encourage parents and would-be parents into parliament, there may need to be a Westminster nursery while parliament is sitting, better cover for parental leave and increased support for constituency work in order to reduce the 60-70 hour week that most MPs work.

However, as it would involve giving politicians additional benefits and reducing their working week, I acknowledge I am on the wrong side of popular opinion on this and I predict parliament will back down, babies will be allowed into the chamber and MPs will be put under additional pressure to work rather than take parental leave.

Paul Kelly

Chesham

Tory MP Nick Fletcher insists that young men take to crime because Doctor Who is now played by a woman (the excellent Jodie Whittaker).

In the 1977 Doctor Who story “The Face of Evil”, the Doctor (then Tom Baker) observed: “You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.”

Nick Fletcher is clearly not “very powerful”.

Sasha Simic

London N16