From Mr Richard Maples
Sir, — Frank Field MP and Sir Andrew Green (Letters, 17 October) are playing with fire by trying to reduce immigration without being racist.
In the C of E secondary modern school where I work, a Filipino and a Ugandan have in recent years been employed to make up for the shortage of UK or EU teachers. Both have been racially abused by some of our pupils — nearly all white. The Filipino has endured endless and expensive bureaucratic harassment from the Home Office — most recently being interviewed by a Frenchwoman about his right to remain in the UK.
In the 1970s, I worked at a further-education college. One of my colleagues was a Ugandan Asian, previously at some danger from Idi Amin. First, the Home Office forbad her to join her mother in the UK, claiming she was not her mother’s daughter. Then, after her mother’s death, she was banned from the UK because her mother was dead. Eventually she was admitted to the UK, and worked several decades at the FE college.
All three of my colleagues have been harassed by Labour governments.
RICHARD MAPLES
32 The Beeches
Salisbury SP1 2JH