No happy endings in this immigration saga

Sir, – So another piece of political theatre comes to its denouement with the resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

Conservative Home Office scandals are as predictable as pantomimes and come with their own time honoured tropes including: cruel heartless and usually racist Tories and their selfless Labour opponents championing the underdog. Behind the scenes the reality is rather different.

The underlying driver of the Home Office’s enduring difficulties is that the views of our political, media and judicial establishments on crime and immigration are fundamentally at odds with those of the majority of the British people, who want firm but fair control of immigration.

In the case of the Windrush scandal, we expect a speedy and fair resolution for people who have long integrated into British life, whether they are technically citizens or not.

The Conservatives periodically promise to get tough on immigration and produce measures to give the impression of doing so. However, as their hearts are not in it, they never apply their minds to obviating the legal and judicial impediments. For Labour, immigration is a licence to slander the Conservatives and protect their market share of ethnic minority voters. Their electoral self-interest is in perfect harmony with their ideological opposition to nations and national borders.

It is time all elements of the establishment grasped that control of immigration – the issue which determined the result of the Brexit referendum – really matters to the British public.

Otto Inglis. Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh.

PA Victim of immigration turf war: Amber Rudd, who resigned on Sunday.