I was saddened to see Gaby Hinsliff, in a no doubt well-intentioned piece (Keir Starmer is keen to tell you that there are no easy answers on immigration. Well, here’s one, 28 November), refer in passing to “the small minority who came here illegally (85% of them in small boats)”. The framing of these poor, desperate souls as criminals has for some years been an ideological trap set and primed by the right, repeated so frequently by government ministers and in the rightwing press that it was widely taken for granted as fact even before the shameful Migration Act 2023 duly made it so.
In order to claim asylum in the UK, a person has to actually be here, on UK soil. It can’t be done at an embassy or online, and there is no “asylum visa”. With no formal way of entering the country for the purpose of claiming asylum (other than very limited country-specific measures, as for Ukraine), those fleeing persecution have no option but to take highly dangerous routes. While claiming asylum is not itself illegal, it is now impossible to actually enter the country to do so – however visible on our TV screens the terrors that people are fleeing – and remain within the law.
Equally, it is dangerous to draw an implicit dividing line between “deserving” immigrants – who will help prop up our failing services – and “illegal” immigrants whose numbers must be reduced.
While this cruel piece of legislation remains on the statute books, instead of casually adopting and thus normalising the language of a desperate government that has criminalised those who would seek safety among us in the name of catching votes from the xenophobic right, we should challenge it loud and clear at every opportunity.
Stephanie O’Brien
London
• While many people acknowledge that we need immigration to prop up several employment sectors, I think most would expect migrant workers to be paid at the same rate as their UK counterparts. However, migrant workers in shortage occupations who come to the UK under the skilled worker visa scheme are being effectively paid as little as £5, as you report (Foreign care workers invited to UK ‘exploited on grand scale’, says union, 28 November).
This scheme is a charter for exploitation and a means to keep both the UK dependent on migrant labour and to suppress pay levels in areas where they are already low. If we never intend to make these sectors pay more, we will only ever see the levels of migrant labour increase while keeping UK workers paid at a level that neither reflects their skills nor pays their bills.
Louise Earnshaw-Brown
Battle, East Sussex
• So this is the country the UK has become under this government: one where people who want to come here to work and make a vital contribution to our national life are tolerated rather than welcomed (UK ministers considering limit on foreign care workers’ dependants, 29 November). Shipped in to do jobs that keep society functioning – but begrudgingly, with a glare of disapproval instead of a smile of gratitude.
The emerging narrative seems to be: yes, of course we’ve failed miserably to invest or bother with provision of service in this or that key sector – but don’t think for a second that because we need you, that we actually want you here.
In this case, the irony is, it’s about the care sector. Something that successive governments and – judging by recent election results – a lot of British people don’t care about deeply enough. And now those who do come to care in the UK are seen as a threat. Not so much careless, as callous – and unapologetically so. We truly are beyond help.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
• I would like the “stop the boats” rhetoric to be changed to “stopping people from war-torn or drought-ridden countries trying to come to UK for a better life”. This would make clear that we are trying to prevent other humans from sharing our living standards, and not just stopping boats.
Pat Brandwood
Poole, Dorset
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
