The government needs to do far better than use migrants as collateral damage

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The Home Office needs to fully appreciate that they are dealing with human beings (PA Archive)

I agree with the correspondence that the government needs to do far better than use migrants as collateral damage to their political self-seeking “Tarzan’” act with their brazen chest-beating. They seem determined to sort this problem out in the most extreme ways possible.

As I have stated before, they are far more interested in the problem than the solution. They should be installing far more safe and legal routes, so these dangerous boat crossings will be avoided, and focus on fast-tracking the frankly ludicrous snail’s pace vetting of often legitimate claims.

Mike Margetts is correct, we should indeed allow migrants to work upon arrival; it would help our diminished workforce and failing economy. Gift these people the innate dignity of work and watch the turn around in the public’s sometimes myopic vision.

I was troubled to hear the news that asylum seekers were now to be housed in military bases and only allowed a negligible amount of daily money.

The kind of mindset that thinks this is acceptable needs to stop. This will only happen if the government and the Home Office fully appreciate that they are dealing with human beings, with their own gifts to bring to this country’s table and not just anonymous statistics.

Judith A. Daniels

Norfolk

Starmer is the right person for a Labour victory

I must disagree with Dr Gavin Lewis in his recent letter to The Independent. He seems to be putting a high Labour turnout in the 2017 and 2019 general elections as a success. As a long-time Labour member, I am more interested in getting a Labour government than yet another Jeremy Corbyn disaster. I certainly agreed with some of the policies promoted by Corbyn but unfortunately, the combination of too many radical policies and the dislike of Corbyn by a lot of voters, led to disastrous results for the party. In addition, Corbyn’s less-than-convincing stance on antisemitism and Brexit disenfranchised many of the electorate.

What we need now is a steady hand on the tiller to avoid frightening the voters and I sincerely believe that Keir Starmer is the right person to achieve a Labour victory in the next general election. His government will not be able to reverse the disastrous policies of the Tories overnight but I think that the many competent shadow ministers will do their very best to improve the lot of the majority of UK citizens.

David Felton

Cheshire

Hold water companies to account

For the life of me, I can’t understand why water executives need to be paid such enormous salaries and bonuses. They don’t face the same pressures as other privatised company executives and they don’t uphold their role in safeguarding water quality for the British public.

We can’t live without water, so there is no need for a sales pitch to the public. They have plenty of support from government. There is no manufacturing element for providing water to its customers. We can’t pick and choose who we buy water from, therefore each water company has a built-in guarantee of a captured audience.

Both the water watchdog and governments have been lax in governing water utilities, culminating in the shambles of water supply, absurdly huge salaries and bonuses to water executives, and lack of investment in future supplies.

Britain now has some of the dirtiest beaches and inshore waters in Europe while some of our rivers are becoming stagnant cesspits. Water companies have been allowed to do as they please in running our water system and the government has not acted to safeguard our country from their inability to maintain standards and plan for the future.

Britain has been severely let down by highly paid water executives who have overseen a free-for-all to make obscene fortunes for themselves and shareholders. While the customers suffer from a failing water system and a lack of planned improvements.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

Inject some realism into our debates

While accepting there is a need to be seen (and to act) as a “humane and welcoming” country I note a determination from some contributors to overlook the savage reality of our financial woes as a nation.

Indebted to a catastrophic degree, with a terrifying inability to care for the health and social needs of both young and old, this country is clearly in no position to add to the pressure with an open-door immigration policy.

We can all variously point the finger of blame at the Tories, Brexit, Kier Starmer, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak etc... but us critics take potshots from the safety and comfort of our sofas. We will never have to sign a critical document or tackle huge and complex humanitarian problems. So it’s easy for us to judge, we don’t carry the can.

Opinions, theories and political ideals have no impact there. Only hard, cold facts. And while we all dream of a world we’d like to see, the numbers generated by research should be a starting point for all conversations. We must be prepared to inject some realism into our debates. Wanting to blame Tories for the current maelstrom is a popular past time, but do we just want a windmill to tilt at? And, right or wrong, we all need to find someone else to blame, don’t we?

Steve Mackinder

Denver

Is Starmer trying to dismantle the British left?

Keir Starmer’s blocking of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour candidacy at the next general election looks to me like the latest in a series of attempts to dismantle the British left forever.

Starmer’s actions are more reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher than they are of any Labour leader in history. He seriously underestimates Corbyn’s popularity, and the commitment of traditional Labour voters to a socialist agenda, in doing so.

Quite apart from the moral difficulty presented by this ignominious and wholly unnecessary action, this latest ploy of Starmer’s shows him to be an autocratic personality whose integrity – remember him referring to Corbyn as his “friend”? – is seriously wanting.

This deserves to have seriously adverse ramifications for him at the ballot box.

I have voted Labour all my life but resigned in protest in 2020 as Starmer withdrew the whip from Corbyn. This is not just due to Starmer’s actions as far as the left generally and Corbyn specifically are concerned, but because – again, invoking Mrs Thatcher – it must not be forgotten that, when asked what her greatest legacy was, she replied: “New Labour.”

Keir Starmer may well be on his way to delivering this toxic legacy in Thatcher’s name for a second time but, if his track record is anything to go by, the consequences of doing so will be far worse than anything we saw under Tony Blair. It is the travesty of Thatcherism re-packaged in Labour branding, from which we must be delivered.

Michael Walton

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