IN a recent letter, the chairman of Ukip Stroud asked readers to decide “who is ‘absurd and dangerous’ – Molly Scott Cato or Nigel Farage?”
If the company one keeps is any clue, then the answer clearly has to be Nigel Farage who went to the US to help Donald Trump prepare to debate against Hilary Clinton.
Farage and Trump make a good pair. Farage has called for immigrants with HIV to be banned from the UK while Trump wants to build a wall along the US border with Mexico.
Farage expressed concerns about the possibility of having Romanian neighbours and Trump called Mexicans murderers and rapists.
Farage thinks breastfeeding mothers should “sit in a corner” and Trump says pregnant women are inconvenient for employers.
Marrying immigrants has not made either of them more enlightened or less xenophobic.
The Green Party does not support an open borders approach but recognises that some controls on immigration are needed for the foreseeable future.
But it is wrong to scapegoat immigrants for problems with housing, education, health or government services.
These problems are the result of successive governments’ failures.
I am proud that Molly Scott Cato represents us in Europe looking for ways to reduce the pressures that cause involuntary migration.
Only by eliminating war and oppressive regimes that create refugees, helping poorer countries deal with the devastating economic and environmental effects of climate change and promoting sustainable development will we be able to deal with the current crisis.
Lynn Haanen, Green Party
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