‘Wealthy UK could accept refugees’

THE letter from W Stephens about immigration ( Sentinel, September 26) misses two very important points from my letters on the subject of the boat people.

Firstly, I did not call for open borders, but for a ‘controlled’ method so that people could be safely and properly assessed and not automatically accepted.

This involves co-operation with our neighbours, especially of course, France, so that we only take our fair share of refugees.

I would agree that we need to prevent a chaotic increase in numbers, for the benefit of all, including those seeking refuge.

Secondly, I was referring to refugees and asylum seekers. His or her letter makes much about immigration generally and mixes up refugees with economic migrants, such as those who came here freely under the EU system from Eastern Europe. The two types of people should be treated separately.

Then there is a challenge to my assertion that population density is no excuse but I stand by that assertion, especially for refugees.

On the radio this week, experts repeated that population density based on population divided by total land area is a poor way of judging this matter.

Thus where population density is high, there is far greater basic infrastructure which can be easily expanded to support taking in a few more people.

Alasdair Rae, professor of urban studies and planning at Sheffield University, has suggested that we should relate population with those square kilometres in which people live, thus leaving out areas in each country that

have no people. This is a bit of a minefield in statistics, and I am sure that having unbuilt land can often in long-term planning allow for increase in population.

His suggestion implied we look much more closely at the capacity of countries, and places within each country, to accommodate refugees.

Capacity means the main issue is wealth and where there is a will to be generous.

The UK is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with the capacity to accommodate its fair share of refugees as well as doing our bit to help people stay in those parts of the world from which so many of them try to escape.

In the long term this benefits all of us, by the contribution that appropriate numbers of refugees always make to our nation and by the development of people

around the world who can then trade with us rather than undercut our economy.

Simply to look at population numbers and say we cannot help refugees is mean and self-defeating when you see the world situation.

NIGEL JONES NEWCASTLE