YOUR correspondent Douglas Mayer (Letters, February 21) in quoting the Lincolnshire town of Boston unfortunately parades many of the misapprehensions which bedevil any discussion on immigration.
Above all, he claims that unlimited EU immigration has led to disadvantages for local people in access to jobs, lowered wages, and in the public services they receive. As Alf Garnett would have put it: "Comin' over 'ere, pinchin' our jobs and 'ospital beds and school places." Indeed, what is possibly most depressing about such views is that they have not moved on from the1960s.
Surely it is better to see the benefits that immigration has delivered both nationally and locally.
In the case of Boston (where I have relatives) the business plan for many local agricultural employers is based on growth which is only possible because of the expanded labour supply provided by EU migration.
Likewise, public services which require minimum population densities and levels of demand continue to serve the town only because of EU migrants. The most obvious example is a local hospital maternity unit, which would have closed had it not been for a revival in the number of births, due to EU migrants. In time the babies will become schoolchildren, who will require schools, which will be kept open instead of suffering closure because of falling rolls.
"So," shout Alf and his latter day successors, "'oo is going to pay for it all?" The answer is of course that part of the working population who pay more in through taxation than they take out in services and benefits – which includes the EU migrants.
Peter A Russell,
87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
RICHARD Mowbray (Letters, February 21) cites an “unexpected” shrinkage in the Greek economy and from that draws an immediate parallel with a future independent Scotland. He goes on to describe the EU as deeply flawed and then draws some bizarre conclusion that Tony Blair and Nicola Sturgeon have lost the plot over Brexit with neither being driven by economic reasoning and literacy.
I would say it is Mr Mowbray who is showing the signs of economic illiteracy though, rather than others. Scotland’s currency, sterling, in the hands of the Union is heading down the economic stank; and being paid out of Scotland while living overseas I see this happening in stark reality. Since the Brexit vote, which Mr Mowbray obviously thinks so highly of, sterling has dropped in value by 16 per cent. To add to the woes of sterling, the Deutsche Bank in the last week has predicted that sterling will tumble a further 16 per cent with the triggering of Article 50. I am now, personally looking at a drop in salary of greater than 30 per cent. I am not alone in this. This isn’t caused by the prospect of Scottish independence but by insular, narrow-minded British attitudes that currently prevail and an unhealthy attitude to Johnny Foreigner. There is only one way forward for Scotland now and it, most certainly, is not to follow the UK down the particular economic stank it is currently pursuing through Brexit.
Andrew J Beck,
5.02 Condominium, 7 Uthant, Jalan U-Thant, 55000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
WHERE is the authority of democracy, as the country is gripped by the intervention of the House of Lords in the Brexit ongoings? (“May goes to Lords for Brexit message”, The Herald, February 21). Unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic peers trying to overthrow the will of the people is totally unacceptable. But perhaps it is worth taking a look at the cost those peers are having on the country, considering many have come out of their winter hibernation for the occasion.
It was reported that on the first day of debate in the Lords there was 187 peers in the House, that from a possible 750 eligible to vote, a mere one-quarter. But coming out of hibernation does have its rewards to the tune of between £150 and £300 per day for those not in receipt of a salary or allowance from another source, and all tax-free. This unelected, undemocratic and unaccountable House of Lords intervention in the Brexit debate merely highlights once again that the second largest parliamentary assembly in the world after China’s national people’s congress must be dissolved.
Catriona C Clark,
52 Hawthorn Drive, Banknock, Falkirk.
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