SIR – When the Labour Party came to power, it was determined to destroy "the forces of conservatism". Observing this, I used to half jokingly say that it didn't really like the British people and wanted to change them. From papers made public earlier this year this suspicion has been confirmed. The Government's deliberate encouragement of mass immigration was part of a plan to change the fabric of our country. The way the statistics are 
presented makes it difficult to understand the reality. The following, however, stands out from the years 1998-2008: net migration from EU countries, 547,000; net migration from other countries, 2,264,000 (predominantly South Asia, Africa and the Middle East). The net foreign inflow into Britain in 2008 was 250,000. Of this, 64,000 came from EU countries, 186,000 from other countries. The UKIP argument of blaming everything on the EU is therefore a nonsense. Even more nauseating is to hear ministers now saying that they want to control immigration and that the figures are moving in the right direction. The priority must be to integrate our resident immigrant population and to bring a rapid end to mass uncontrolled immigration. The first cannot happen without the second. We then need to have the truth about what has really been going on over these past 10 years.
Geoffrey Van Orden MEP
Chelmsford, Essex
