Local refugee charities, the district council, the area MP and local people are all questioning the Home Office plan to house 1,500 male asylum seekers at the former RAF air base at Linton. It is the wrong place and wrong plan.

However, the Home Office moves forward with preparations even though it doesn’t benefit asylum seekers or local people.

Maybe Partygate is the answer. Was this conceived in an alcoholic fog?Or maybe someone suggested it as a joke, while sitting on the photocopier spilling red wine?

Perhaps no one can remember who proposed it.

But even if housing a big group is a reasonable plan, which many people would question, why RAF Linton when other sites in the UK, for example RAF Halton, are in a similar state of decommission?

Could it be that RAF Halton is too close to London - and to Chequers, the PM’s country house, whereas Yorkshire is north of Watford Gap and out of sight?

Mike, Newton on Ouse (Full name and address supplied)

 

Asylum seekers are not here ‘illegally’

I would like to respond to the label ‘illegal immigrants’ given instead of asylum seekers to people fleeing war, oppression and bigotry by one of the letters in Saturday’s issue of the York Press (Rwanda deportation plan was just a gimmick, May 28).

A label of criminality is unwarranted. Would the term illegal also apply to those recently airlifted from Afghanistan or those escaping the war in the Ukraine? Are there deserving and undeserving refugees? Refugees should be welcome here - the UK is a signatory to the UN.

The UK rates of granting entry have been the lowest in Europe. The situation now is dire as there is seemingly no ‘legal’ way to enter Britain. The Home Office is not interested in the reasons that people leave their homeland and embark on the perilous journey to seek sanctuary, only the method used to enter this country.

The whole issue is complex and requires sensitivity and understanding. But a well organised and humane entry assessment of refugees is unlikely after the recent passing of Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Act, which creates more hostility towards those seeking asylum.

Have we learned nothing from the ‘Windrush’ generation scandal?

Gwen Vardigans, Carron Crescent, Woodthorpe, York