In her recent opinion piece (A dangerous cult now runs Britain – the worshippers at the Temple of Johnson, 28 May), Marina Hyde writes: “Elsewhere, it has emerged that a government that came to power promising to control our borders has allowed 1.59 million – ONE POINT FIVE NINE MILLION – travellers to fly into the UK in the four lockdown months from January to April alone, two-thirds of whom were not UK nationals.”
What matters is not whether those travellers are UK nationals, but whether they are ordinarily resident in the UK, which could be for work or study among other things. It’s worth remembering, for example, that the majority of EU nationals in this country are of “settled status”, but not citizens. By definition, non-citizen residents are more likely to have family abroad, giving them valid reasons to travel even during these times. Now, I don’t know what the ratio of residents to non-residents is for the quoted number. Regardless, such unqualified use of an attention-grabbing statistic detracts from an otherwise fine article and only serves to feed hostility toward migrants, of which, frankly, there’s been more than enough.
Nikolai Ishchuk
London
