A RECENT and devastating audit has revealed that immigrants arrived in Britain at the rate of almost one every minute during the ‘open door’ years under New Labour.

Our foreign population increased by a staggering 3.6 million between 1997 and 2010, equivalent to the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield and Bradford.

This will surely be a major issue for voters in the coming election, and in my opinion the British public should have been made aware of and alerted to Labour plans in their manifesto.

Not wishing to be accused of party allegiance, I should also point out that the current Coalition government are also drastically failing to meet their immigration targets.

As far as I am concerned the most disturbing aspect of open borders is that some of Europe’s most dangerous fugitives are now in the UK, and if the travel of convicted foreign criminals is to be curtailed clearly there is need for additional legislation.

I would suggest that all countries reveal criminal pasts by including convictions of their citizens in their passports, enabling our border staff to refuse entry to undesirables.

Whilst I accept this is not a foolproof system, the cynic in me suspects that most countries will not co-operate as they will be glad to see the back of them.

Jim Oldcorn, Great Harwood (via email)