It is a myth that migration into the UK is harming the employment of local people. What is clearly true, is that the UK's labour market has become much more flexible over the last 30 years and I think you need to see immigration in general, and free movement within the European Union in particular, as part of that. We've had faster growth than we otherwise might have had. We've had more jobs than we would otherwise have had. And on the whole we're richer and more prosperous in per capita terms than we would otherwise have been.
Policy-makers need to be much more open about the benefits of immigration, but more broadly if we want Britain to be a successful, open, trading economy - and that is our future in the global economy - being open to immigration is part of that. We don't really have the option of being closed to immigration, but still being 'open for business', in the words of the Prime Minister. So it's important that politicians of all parties make that case very clearly.
We have a lot of evidence showing that it's not immigrants who cause youth unemployment, but structural problems with our own education and skills system and our own youth labour market. I think when politicians start blaming immigrants for these problems that really is scapegoating and it's wholly unacceptable in my view. It deludes people into the false hope that somehow if we reduced immigration these problems would be magically solved and that's just not true.
Both major political parties’ front benches, and even cabinet members, are divided when it comes to whether Britain should remain in the single market, which entails allowing free movement of people within the EU.
Baldev Sharma
Rayners Lane, Harrow
