On 21 May you published my letter about Owais Raja, one of the numerous cases of immigrants who have been deprived of their indefinite leave to remain under paragraph 322(5) of the immigration rules, because of errors in their tax returns, even though the HMRC found them not to be deliberate. The Home Office has now announced a welcome review. But what happens while the review takes place? Under para 322(5) the victims may no longer face the threat of immediate deportation, but they are barred from earning a living or access to the NHS. They cannot pay for food, their rent or any urgent medical treatment. Are they and their families to beg and sleep on the streets? Surely there must be an immediate, at the very least temporary, restoration of their leave to remain while their cases are reconsidered?
Dick Taverne
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
• Timothy Garton Ash (1 June) is not the only one to fear for the future of the European project. However, I find fighting talk about reclaiming “European sovereignty” as depressing and shortsighted as Brexit. Mass migration is not a “threat” to Europe; it is a complex human struggle driven by war, poverty and climate breakdown, issues in which we are globally complicit. The approval in April of a new immigration law cuts asylum application deadlines, doubles detention times and will introduce a one-year prison term for entering France illegally. In northern France, police are confiscating tents and removing shoes from refugees. This does not make Macron “impressive” and “compelling”, it makes him cruel and miserly – the same as all other European leaders who are overwhelmed by their obligations and so retreat to identity politics. We might feel reassured pretending this emperor is the one wearing shiny new clothes, but we have a greater responsibility to our neighbours – people, not “juggernauts” about to “trample us”. Less “courage”, fellow Europeans, perhaps, and more compassion.
Libby Ruffle
Woodbridge, Suffolk
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