New immigration rules are elitist and selfish

Nesrine Malik shines a welcome spotlight on the need to counter the new wave of elitism and selfishness in the immigration system (Immigrants built Britain. Their children disown them, Journal, 24 February).

The children – and grandchildren – of Asian immigrants to Britain are certainly not the first individuals to adopt harsh policies that run diametrically opposite to the laws that enabled their ancestors to come to Britain. The parents of Michael Howard, now Lord Howard, were both from Jewish families that came to Britain from Romania in 1939, but their beneficial treatment did not prevent him from adopting harsh immigration policies as Conservative party leader.

Nesrine Malik is particularly accurate in pointing out that the current and proposed rules for immigrants demean jobs such as care assistants. In fact, the whole concept of only seeking to accept immigrants who can benefit the British economy is scandalous. It means that those educated and dynamic individuals who are most needed in their own countries are snaffled away by Britain.

We will never move towards equalisation of conditions in Africa, Asia and eastern Europe while we entice away their businessmen and women, their doctors, teachers and technicians.

Britain needs to take a much broader and sympathetic attitude to immigration. We did it in the past with Jews fleeing Russian pogroms in the early 20th century, with Poles coming here after the second world war, with Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin and with the Vietnamese boat people fleeing an authoritarian regime. All these men and women came with nothing, but over the years have benefited this country. We need to assist similar individuals today.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds

• One way to illustrate the impact of the proposed immigration system over five generations is to see if my ancestors would have been admitted under the new immigration points system. Admittedly, this is slightly artificial because Ireland wasn’t a separate country with immigration controls – it was “part of” the United Kingdom, albeit a part in which the inhabitants were starving while their crops were shipped to England. But I thought I would just check (adjusting for inflation, effectively; I think we know what would earn a “good salary”).

Puddler (ironworker) from Cork – no; riveter, from Ireland– no; boy soldier from Dublin, joined up aged 14 – no, unskilled when recruited; stonemason from Limerick – no; provision dealer from Wicklow – no, self-employed; labourer from Carlow – no; domestic staff from Clonmel – no; and the great-great-grandmothers from Limerick, Down, and Kilkenny whose profession is recorded in English censuses as “wife” – no.

By turning these people away, Britain would have turned away a family that over the years has included a stonemason who helped to build Victorian London, two headteachers, numerous teachers and doctors and other health staff (300 years of work for the NHS), men who built ships for the British navy, men who fought for Britain in several wars, an RAF pilot, a university librarian, a prison librarian, talented actors, a human rights lawyer, social and charity workers, and many others including the author of Brexit’s a Trick not a Treat and Brexit’s a Musical Trick (that’s me).

Ah yes, perhaps the prime minister would have preferred to keep the Cashmans out.
Mike Cashman
Milton Keynes

• While the policies being proposed by the government are clearly obnoxious, not to say self-defeating, little attention is apparently given by anyone to the impact on their home countries of the large-scale emigration of highly skilled people. While the UK may welcome these people for the benefits they will bring to this country, why is no one taking an internationalist perspective? If there is to be any progress towards global prosperity, it is counter-productive for the rich west to entice the brightest and most skilful people to feed its already strong – though horribly unequal – economies.
Malcolm Pim
Aylsham, Norfolk

• “Those who came here to drive buses and run newsagents did not exist in some alternate universe where those occupations required no skills,” says Nesrine Malik in her excellent article.

It is worth pointing out that many highly skilled immigrants also came over, but through discrimination and lack of opportunity most of these doctors, engineers and architects did indeed end up working as bus drivers or porters or doing other menial jobs. Even in the last decade or so, many such skilled workers who have come over as refugees can’t land a decent job. Such a loss to the nation and its economy.
Guru Singh
Shepshed, Leicestershire

• The headline on Nesrine Malik’s article is grossly unfair. It’s not a matter of second-generation immigrants disowning their parents, but of two ambitious politicians who have chosen to do that to further their careers.

Surely the headline on the article would better have said that directly, not implied that this kind of behaviour is general?
Kevin McGrath
Harlow, Essex

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