As a volunteer with an organisation helping to support refugees and asylum seekers in Hertfordshire, I have to take issue with Robert Jenrick when he says that their “values and lifestyles” threaten the UK’s social cohesion (‘Values and lifestyles’ of small boat refugees threaten social cohesion, says Jenrick, 25 April). The asylum seekers I have met have been polite, charmingly grateful for our help and eager to get on with their lives. This means working to improve their English – at college, as soon as they are eligible – and, since asylum seekers are not allowed to earn money, keen to volunteer their services to charities and other organisations. The parents are as concerned for their children’s wellbeing as any UK parents, care for them lovingly and encourage them to work hard at school.
Meanwhile, they are coping with the trauma of lives disrupted by violence, the turmoil of their journeys to get here and the stresses of living, usually in one room, in a strange country where they are dependent on the kindness of strangers for clothing, shoes and all the necessities of life. In my view, the UK will benefit immeasurably from their presence and the skills and values they bring.
Vicky Woodcraft
Trustee, Herts Welcomes Refugees
• As a second-generation “migrant”, I agree with Suella Braverman (Suella Braverman: small boat arrivals have ‘values at odds with our country’, 26 April) and Robert Jenrick that I “possess values at odds” with them. I am proud to share most migrants’ values of compassion, decency, truth, solidarity and universal human rights – values totally alien to the poisonous rhetoric of Braverman and Jenrick.
How shameful that the racist tropes that ensured Enoch Powell was sacked from the Conservative frontbench have now become the government’s normal political discourse. The Conservatives are hurtling from the hard right to far-right extremism. Let’s hope that the House of Lords saves us from this immoral illegal migration bill.
Gideon Ben-Tovim
University of Liverpool
• Robert Jenrick says that “a shared national identity bound by shared memories, traditions and values is a prerequisite to generosity in society”. Our research in Africa, the Middle East, south Asia and south-east Asia through the Protracted Displacement Economies project indicates that this is untrue. We find that mutual aid is common in communities where there is a mix of displaced people and the host population.
On average, 30% of people in these communities give or receive financial support and 40% give or receive non-financial support. Moreover, our most recent data suggests that Lebanon, the country in our sample where mutual aid is lowest, has experienced a sharp rise over the past 12 to 18 months. People around the world seem to want to support foreigners more than Jenrick appears to believe.
Sunit Bagree
School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
• We’re supporting Syrian refugees here in Derbyshire. In the past few weeks I’ve had conversations, through a translator app, about religion (and how extremism fuels problems, not religion), the war in Sudan (perfectly aligned with our values), the price of food, and worries about their teenage son. I haven’t found anything different to the lifestyle or values of most of their neighbours.
Carol Taylor
Matlock, Derbyshire
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