Diane Taylor correctly asserts that the illegal migration bill will cause more smuggling (‘Evil people smugglers’ are easy to blame for migrant boat tragedies. Here’s the truth, 19 June). In fact, under the old rules, arrivals on UK coasts want to be found and will therefore turn themselves in and claim asylum.
With the new migration bill there will be more under-the-radar arrivals as they may well fear deportation to Rwanda. They will arrive in the dark or on remoter beaches and disappear, meaning more people remaining in the shadows of our society, ready to be exploited by unscrupulous “employers”. It is this that I find so abhorrent in the proposals. It is actually going to make the life of people traffickers easier and more profitable.
Barbara Karayi
Immigration lawyer, and chair, West London Equality Centre
• I want to thank Diane Taylor for nailing the lie that people smugglers are the cause of mass migration. This message needs to be carried time and again in places other than the progressive media. All of us who are horrified by the news of mass refugee drownings in Greek seas must daily counter the mountain of lies that for too long has stoked hatred of asylum seekers and refugees seeking safety in Britain, as well as actively support those committed British people who save lives and offer shelter.
I live in St Leonards-on-Sea. Just the other day, an RNLI worker out fundraising told the Hastings Community of Sanctuary charity how a man in Bexhill, the neighbouring seaside town, harangued her for nine minutes, shouting and saying that she and the RNLI were “the problem”.
I have no doubt that awful man believed that he was vindicated by the hateful messaging and distorted data issuing almost daily from the top of the Conservative government. However, unless timid Labour begins to offer unequivocal support to refugees, with a firm and informed rebuttal against the lies emanating from the government, there is a danger that it will be culpable by virtue of its silence should there be a repeat of November 2021’s mass drownings in our own coastal waters.
Rosie Brocklehurst
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
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