Tackling economic and cultural issues would calm concerns over immigration

I always read whatever Joyce Mcmillan says with great interest and respect, so I hope she will tolerate my playing Devil’s Advocate regarding her well-argued piece on immigration (“The importance of standing up to immigration ‘bigots’”, 14 September).

Firstly, there is a major crisis in Africa and the Middle East with the proliferation of any number of rogue and failing states, so it is quite under- standable that people resident there would want to seek better lives in Europe. It is also right that Europe assists with trying to sort out these problems, not least because European colonialism may be said to have contributed to them.

But there is no doubt that if universal immigration were allowed, it would indeed place intolerable economic burdens on those countries or regions which had to accommodate economic migrants. More could and is being done to help the problem states to clean up their act, so that residents there would feel able to help rebuild their futures at home.

Secondly, there is the question of culture and values.

I would not claim by any means that British culture is the most advanced – it clearly has many major faults (including failing to recognise the idea of an independent Scotland). But for many hundreds of years the majority have accepted the overall rule of law and the idea of equality of sexes, including the recognition that people from the LGBT community also have the right to conduct their lives as they wish.

For some immigrants from Islamic countries this is not the case, and sadly many of this persuasion appear to be living parallel lives in the UK, refusing to accept its generally secular culture and attendant values. It has been recognised by any number of political decision-makers that “multiculturism” has failed, and may be one of the factors in disaffected young men becoming radicalised and subsequently committing acts of violence against wider society.

I hope I’m not “bigoted”, although Joyce may disagree, and technically I’m also an immigrant to Scotland, although I came here largely because of respect for Scottish culture and values.

However, I would suggest that if the two issues I’ve highlighted were robustly tackled by decision-makers there would be fewer people opposed to the idea of immigration and the bigots would lose a wider audience.

(DR) MARY BROWN Dalvenie Road, Banchory