Sir,

Suddenly various Politicians, BBC executives and Journalists, including Peter Hitchin (sic), admit that they have been bigoted and naive in their stance on immigration over the past 40 years. If the consequences of their stupidity were not so tragic for the UK then it would be humorous. They are now aware of the impact mass immigration has had on society, the economy, crime, the NHS, education, housing and all social services. Of course, in the main, they are not affected at all by the consequences of their support for mass immigration.

I and many others campaigned for years for a more balanced and pragmatic approach to immigration and requests for asylum. No one listened. Time and again I found the problem to be naivete amongst even the most senior politicians and BBC staff.

My working life was spent mainly in the Middle East, Levant, Maghreb, India and the SC. I knew at first hand and over many years how difficult and often impossible it is to achieve an integrated and cohesive multi cultural society. There was also the question of what is an optimum or sustainable population for the UK ? What levels of debt and unemployment are tolerable or affordable? Answers came there none. I also explained how misleading the figures produced by the ONS on immigration were and are. We are now told that on average around 100,000 immigrants arrived in the UK annually since 1998 with a peak of 255,000. This is nonsense. There are around 10 categories of immigrant. These figures do not include EU citizens, those with partiality, those whose passports give them the Right of Abode, remember Hong Kong and Chris Patterns deals ? and various "others" add to these numbers births minus deaths and then deduct the number of emigrants and one will arrive at a trustworthy figure. Add to that figure the number of work permits and student visas issued, all require health and other services and a proportion of these people become permanent residents. A House of Lords committee looked at the costs of immigration back in, from memory, 2007. Costs were put at over 8 Billion Pounds. There are over 200 million migrants scattered around the world according to the IOM in Geneva. Chaos and economic hardship in many countries means that the number of refugees,economic migrants and asylum seekers grows exponentially.

The UK is a prime target. The failures of the UK's immigration system have been well documented over many years. In 2004 Steve Moxon blew the whistle with his book The Great Immigration Scandal, just one of many that revealed incompetence and worse in government and the civil service. Of course it may well be me that is naive! The UK is a signatory to the UN's Agenda 21 and its many updates. This document describes the failures of the present systems of government. The solution is of course World Government and a more relaxed attitude to migration, just one amongst many other changes they propose. Only by leaving the EU can the UK regain sovereignty over immigration policy and escape the legal constraints placed upon UK courts by The European Commission. It will take strong government to correct the mistakes of the past and the three political parties now in residence in Westminster will not, perhaps cannot, make those decisions.

Paul Rhodes
Sechelt
British Columbia. Canada.