Letter: Racist immigration

Racist immigration

Sir: I was surprised to read Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's article "Wake up Mr Straw. You're continuing the tradition of racist immigration" (28 October).

The immigration and asylum laws enacted in Britain since 1968, prior to which any British subject of any race could settle here, have nothing to do with racial prejudice but everything to do with the fact that a small, crowded island cannot allow its population to increase indefinitely.

Your contributor went so far as to compare unfavourably her country and mine with Germany, where 6 million innocent people were murdered for reasons of race, and where today immigrant Turks have to return whence they came when their work is done. And to compare Britain with Canada, with its vast areas of underdeveloped land, is equally unrealistic.

CHRISTOPHER H F BLAKE

Oxford