IT is time for a factual debate on immigration.

The crucial question is whether in reality immigration can be controlled.

The pressure on individuals and families to migrate in order to to seek a better life in a wealthier country, or to escape grinding poverty, or civil war is far more intense and compelling than the determination and physical ability of potential host communities to keep them out.

If you are prepared to take a chance and wrench yourself away from all you are familiar with and hold dear, and even to risk your life and liberty crossing front lines, deserts, mountain passes, and by travelling in unseaworthy ships or locked into containers, you are not going to be thwarted by a UK law, nor by the seas around Britain’s coastline, nor by a thinly spread corps of frontier guards.

The reality is that the policies this country follow create the conditions that motivate people to migrate.

We take part in foreign civil wars. We sell arms to countries fighting civil wars.

We support global financial systems that encourage the elite - including those of poverty-ridden countries - to transfer funds out of their national economies; and we accept that global corporations are allowed to use tax loopholes and avoid contributing to the economies which they are exploiting.

Immigration is the symptom of a diseased global economy that penalises all but those who are skilled at enriching themselves.

Our Government needs to address the disease not the symptoms.

Maurice Vassie, Deighton, York