Sir – Mike Rose’s unfounded claims about Britain accepting every refugee who wants to come here (Letters, October 14) are not borne out by fact. Almost half of all claims are either withdrawn or refused.

Moreover, the UNHCR 2014 Global Trends Report confirms that: “by the end of 2014, the population of refugees, pending asylum cases and stateless persons made up just 0.24% of the British population. That’s 117,161 refugees, 36,383 pending asylum cases and 16 stateless persons.

The vast majority of refugees stay in their region of displacement, so that 86% of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries. Turkey now hosts the highest number of refugees at 1.6million, followed by Pakistan at 1.5million.”

Teresa May’s statement about immigration costing British workers their jobs is disingenuous given that David Cameron has said Britain will not “put up the barriers” to stop migrants from other European Union countries coming here to work (indeed we can’t, given EU rules).

Nowhere in his letter does Mr Rose acknowledge ongoing conflicts, or the poor Human Rights record of some countries in the Middle East and Africa, which have undoubtedly exacerbated the crisis of people fleeing their countries.

The conclusion I come to is that Mr Rose’s distorted arguments are designed to worry and frighten us about people who are different to us but who need our help in their time of trouble.

Carol Stavris
Loyd Road
Didcot