Shame on those stoking fears about refugees

Chris Philp “shares” what he calls “the anger and frustration of the public at the appalling number of crossings” (Refugees tell of brutality as people-smuggling across Channel booms, 7 August).

What is appalling is his own rhetoric, which is likely to whip up resentment and dehumanise the people desperately trying to reach the UK. Most are fleeing conflict and persecution; they are coming to claim asylum, which they have a legal right to do. The numbers involved are minuscule when presented as a fraction of our population (0.006%), and lower than the normal number entering the UK in non-Covid times to claim asylum.

There is another compassionate public whose anger and frustration is directed not at our beleaguered fellow human beings, but at a government that, despite repeated promises to reform its lethally hostile environment, in seeking to make the Channel route “completely unviable” by whatever means, entrenches it in the most brutal way.
Dr Felicity Laurence
Hastings, East Sussex

• The extraordinary fuss about “235 … people identified trying to cross the Channel in small boats to reach the UK” (UK plan to use navy to stop migrant crossings is unlawful, lawyers warn, 7 August) should be seen in context. In the seven months from July 2019 the UK accounted for just 6% of asylum and first-time asylum applicants in the EU28, whereas Germany accounted for 23.3% of all applicants in the EU27, followed by France (19.6%), Spain (18.8%) and Greece (12.2%).

Johnson’s government, having swept to power exploiting prejudice against refugees, continues to pretend there is a problem when in reality there isn’t. Shame on it.
David Murray
Wallington, London

• When will anyone in government ever admit the real reason why many people make the UK their chosen destination? It isn’t our welcoming arms nor our generous social benefits (much as the Tory press would have us believe). Neither of these supposed attractions exist. It is the fact that our weak labour regulations allow employers to take on workers and sack them with no fuss when the authorities come round. There are thousands of these undocumented and often exploited workers within a short walk of the Commons, in hotels, restaurants, dry cleaners, etc – facilities used by plenty of MPs.
Steve Lupton
Prestwich, Manchester