SIR – I felt compelled to comment on the letter ‘Getting to grips with immigration is the key’ (Worcester News, September 14).

Immigration is a good thing, but mass economic migration?

All countries need the best; they need the best scientists, the best doctors, the best engineers, the best humanitarians and the best teachers.

The problem facing this country today is that the current situation says that we can only recruit the best from inside Europe.

Surely, are we not discriminating against all those countries with which we have so much in common – not least the same legal traditions and the same language? I’m thinking of India, Canada, America, Australia and South Africa to name but a few.

While our partners in Europe closed their borders to mass migration, our pro- European government opened the doors and threw away the key.

In Labour’s 13 years of power (1997-2010) they let in 2.2 million migrants – more than twice the population of Birmingham.

Only now are we beginning to pay the price, with unemployment rising to just over 2.5 million, our schools filled with non-English speaking children, social services under pressure, and hospitals having to cope with not only an ageing population, but a massive jump in population numbers.

Whatever happened to common sense? All countries need clever, hard-working immigrants who will contribute to a country’s economic future.

But is it right to ship people thousands of miles to pack our boxes, to process our food, to manufacture our products and to clean our toilets?

And I would argue with those who say the British are too lazy and don’t want to work. This is the kind of sweeping statement from people who have never worked.

In my earlier years I worked on production lines, I worked on factory floors and I worked until my hands bled.

I will not have a bad word said against the British workforce who are, in my view, the salt of the earth.

LAWSON A CARTWRIGHT
UKIP Worcester