08-05-2025
Brexit Britain appears powerless to stem the flow of illegal immigration
SIR – A third of those who voted for Brexit did so because they felt that the legal immigration of largely European citizens was out of control. Yet here we are, five years after leaving the EU, overwhelmed by illegal migrants from elsewhere in the world – with little or no documentation as to who they are – and we are unable to stop them because, having left the EU, we can't obtain important intelligence on the people smugglers (report, May 8).
Gary Spring
Ringwood, Hampshire
SIR – Last year, the cost of asylum accommodation was £1.67 billion (report, May 8). It has now risen to approximately £4.6 million a day.
Would the electorate prefer this money to be spent on education, the NHS – maybe even helping pensioners?
No wonder Reform UK did so well in the elections. Voters are disillusioned.
Rebecca Edwards
St Neots, Cambridgeshire
SIR – I'm surely not alone in being angered by the Government's use of the term 'irregular migration' to describe illegal Channel crossings (report, May 6).
This attempt to deflect criticism of its ineffectual policy is shameful and deceitful. Is it any wonder that immigration is the major political issue for so many voters – one that the Prime Minister would rather sweep under the carpet?
Peter Williman
Chatteris, Cambridgeshire
SIR – I am sorry that it seems even slightly scandalous that a fellowship associated with Sir Winston Churchill may be helping to support London's fledgling Migration Museum (' Churchill legacy funds migrant 'propaganda' ', Arts, May 7).
As a trustee of the enterprise, I ought to point out that Churchill is not likely to be turning in his grave. If anything, he is one of our inspirations. His own mother was an immigrant from America, and in a leaflet published 1904 in The Manchester Guardian, expressing opposition to the Aliens Act then going through Parliament, he wrote that he saw no reason to abandon 'the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and asylum to which this country has so long adhered, and from which it has so greatly gained'.
As for the notion, attributed to Lee Anderson MP, that the museum is a 'transparent propaganda outfit', I can only say that, since Britain has museums dedicated to toy cars, matchbooks, fans, pencils, wool, butterflies and other marvellous things, the idea is merely to provide an attraction devoted to a subject of enormous national interest, which Mr Anderson himself admits is 'consistently a top issue for voters'.
Perhaps he thinks that museums should be limited to matters of only minor importance. Surely not.
