Labour must debunk Farage’s migrant myths | Letters

You can see how it works. First, the case against asylum seekers is based on the impact on public services and the costs of accommodation. Then we have references to “fighting-age men”. Then we have Nigel Farage explicitly saying that asylum seekers are a threat to “our women and girls” and national security. It’s a short step from there to “vigilantes” being emboldened to harass anyone of colour in the vicinity of an asylum hotel or detention camp. Then the distinction between asylum seekers and immigrants gets blurred. This is the road to serious racial conflict. Just look at the example of Northern Ireland, where perfectly normal legal immigrants have been driven out of some areas by rightwing thugs.

And what is the Labour government’s response? Debunking Reform UK’s increasingly inflammatory myths about asylum seekers and immigrants? If only. Instead they call Farage’s plans impractical or unworkable. Besides the moral cowardice this displays, it’s also pretty stupid when the government’s own responses to the situation show every sign of failing to work.
Simon Rew
London

The Democrats said the same about Donald Trump (Farage attacked for ‘ugly’ rhetoric of plan for mass deportation of asylum seekers, 26 August). He won because he drove the narrative. Likewise, Nigel Farage’s racist populism will win unless Labour drives a strong counter-narrative to dispel the notion of threat. Voters persuaded by Farage will not respond to moralising by his opponents.

People need the facts, loud and clear, in simple terms. The reality of who migrants really are, the varied reasons why they come, the small percentage that comes in boats and the vast economic and social contribution of migrants to this country over decades, part of the fabric of our society. Plus our longstanding commitment to giving refuge to people in need.

None of this is to deny the complexities of modern migration. But if our government is not seen to respect and promote the truth about migrants, we are in deep trouble. We only have to look across the Atlantic to see why.
Paula Jones
London

Rafael Behr (There’s an obvious way to challenge Nigel Farage. But Keir Starmer won’t do it, 27 August) is right to decry Nigel Farage’s continued blowing of the immigration dog-whistle, but one does need to take into account the factors which explain why his approach continues to have traction. At the time the Refugee Convention was signed, 1951, the world population was 2.54 billion. It is now around 8.2 billion. The potential scale of refugee arrivals is thus considerably larger than when refugee rights were first adopted. This at a time when the UK cannot afford to grant child support to families with more than two children, has astronomical NHS waiting lists and a shortage of affordable housing.

It is all very well waving placards welcoming all comers, but there are legitimate concerns about a problem that is orders of magnitude greater than it has ever been. This government has recognised that fact but is struggling, in common with all other western governments, to find and articulate a solution.
Raj Parkash
London

Rafael Behr expresses the burning frustration of so many that Labour refuses to call out the wholesale folly of leaving the EU as the most damning indictment of British politics, government and administration in decades, and to place the blame firmly where it belongs – on a demagogic snake oil salesman and a playbook informed by a far-right international.

The cancer that has metastasised since the referendum is the rise of binary, zero-sum politics in which one can only win by making others lose – and by ever more performative cruelty to punish those who are deemed to be the enemy.

There is now a national crisis. It isn’t about desperate people in boats. It is about Britain becoming a hellscape of the kind currently unfolding in the US. Politics is about choices. If progressive parties do not rally what is still a majority in the country who view a future run by fascistic blowhards with contempt and disgust then we are increasingly consigned to mimic a country which many British people, including myself, no longer even consider visiting.
Kevin Lloyd
Highbury, London

Nigel Farage and the small number of Reform MPs justifies, at most, a couple of column inches on the inside pages of the Guardian. Unfortunately, and with the finest of intentions, you and the rest of the media continue to make Farage into a towering national political figure. This is what happened with Donald Trump in America and, to an extent, with Boris Johnson. Do beware! Lavish and extensive promotion enables people to think that Nigel Farage is a true and worthy leader.
Dr Ian Flintoff
Oxford

A Downing Street spokesman has refused to rule out negotiations with the Taliban concerning returned refugees. We can be certain that all such refugees will be murdered by the Taliban and that any assurances to the contrary that they may give will not be worth a bucket of cold spit.

This statement, following Nigel Farage’s barrel-scraping performance on Tuesday, marks a new and thoroughly despicable low for this country. Keir Starmer, in just over a year you have dragged the party into the moral sewer. After 52 years, you have lost my vote.
Robert McNulty
Manchester