Immigration not to blame for op queues

HAVING lost my own mobility while waiting for a hip replacement, and then waiting a further five hours one day while over-stretched staff struggled to find a bed, I can understand the frustration felt by David Rees (Western Mail letters, May 20).

However, he is mistaken in blaming his long wait for surgery on immigration. All my fellow patients were UK born, whereas many of the dedicated staff looking after us were immigrants.

Just as Ed Miliband failed to refute the Osborne argument that Labour ‘failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining’, Corbyn and McDonnell have sold the pass by voting for Brexit instead of proving to voters that their lack of hospital beds, lack of homes, and lack of good school places are not down to immigration but to Osborne’s austerity cuts.

Voters are trusting Theresa May to secure a ‘good’ Brexit deal when no deal exists which can possibly be better than the one we have already.

Ukip’s victory over the Tory party is all the more extraordinary for a party that regards itself as being on the side of business.

The international trading position of the City of London, secured by Nelson’s navy, keeps our economy afloat, despite the loss of imperial preference and the loss of our industrial base under Thatcher’s government, but the loss of thousands of jobs to mainland Europe that will inevitably flow from any Brexit deal will mean even less tax revenue to spend on health and education.

Our failing education system will make us even more reliant on non-EU immigration to staff our hospitals and program our computers, especially as the Indian education system is now well ahead of ours when it come to computer technology.

Meanwhile, far too many of our homeless and uneducated young people understandably want to be off their heads on Spice, with their only prospect a jail term in one of our overcrowded, drugridden prisons, bequeathed to us by Theresa May’s six years as Home Secretary.

Is this really “the will of the people” or is it the will of those multi-billionaires who funded Ukip and who will never need to use our NHS or our state education system? Margaret Phelps

Penarth