IT is difficult to find the exact words that would convey the disgust I feel over the Home Office debacle relating to people and their status: be that citizens, refuges, asylum seekers, migrants.

In this instance we learn about a generation of Commonwealth citizens, arriving as children of adults invited to Britain to help rebuild the mother country post-war, who have been deprived of their rights, held in detention centres and deported.

Imagine being part of the vanguard that helped build the NHS but then you find yourself denied treatment. In Westminster, Joanna Cherry spoke of possibly 50,000 people affected, a figure derived from the Migration Observatory at Oxford University.

Deported, removed from your home and family? This is possibly the most recent, but worst, example of right-wing ideology being translated into action, ranging from ranting politicians and words on the sides of vans to scary headlines in national newspapers and the vilification of newcomers as the “others” and “outsiders”. When words like migrants, refuges and asylum seekers are twisted to become threats – threatening jobs, wages, property, even lives – should we be surprised at the outcome?

And how many times here in Scotland have we heard of families being broken up, deported, with paperwork and evidence of studying, working, business development being ignored or rejected? Surely it leads to the question of just how incompetent a department has to be before its practices are called in for security and its head is called on to resign?

But then, I forget, Amber Rudd is part of the rUK government that is so weak it cannot afford to publicly confirm what we know already: the depth of that weakness and the failure of various post holders. Rudd and Boris are just two. The lack of accountability demonstrates the Tory government’s need to keep its right wing close, its Brexiteers closer and its propping-up DUP allies closest. So now we see May going cap in hand to the heads of the Commonwealth attempting to smooth this over in some way. After all, as the UK rushes headlong into Brexit we have been assured that there is a a ready-made trade market waiting in the Commonwealth. After this? I truly wonder.

If nothing else, this human catastrophe created by the dogma of a government we did not vote for is yet another example of how not to govern. How much longer do we wait, how much more work do we undertake before indyref2 and the establishment of an independent Scotland that would govern in a more equitable and accountable manner? I can’t answer that, but the longer we wait, do we gain momentum, or lose out in the power grab, the relentless chipping away at human dignity through loss of rights, less buying power in wage packets, the rise of zero-hour contracts, and the failure of Brexit to be that promised land? So for me, the sooner the better.

Selma Rahman
Edinburgh

THERE are some things happening that the UK Government would rather hide under the Syrian headlines.

REMEMBER all the fuss and sound of fury regarding the possible plight of EU nationals resident in the UK after Brexit? Much concern was shown for their security so that they appear safe (at least, for now).

Contrast that with the UK Government’s treatment of the “Windrush” immigrants from the Commonwealth Caribbean who were invited over to help post-war Britain reset after the war. They were British passport-holders. Under present UK Government regulations these folk now face demands to prove their right to be here under pain of deportation or detention. By the way, back then the UK Government was not too worried about registration paperwork. Today the UK Government has back peddled somewhat in its cruel demands after not much media outrage.

We look afar to blatantly racist governments with disgust but the UK version is more implicit. This UK Government does not represent my values. I feel disgust at the UK Government’s ways and my stomach turns at the realisation that a UK Government is my government whether I like it or not. Call me a cynic, but compare the skin colour of an average EU resident and our “Windrush” folk!

Strange what lessons one learns. I thought that my commitment to an independent Scotland was 100 per cent. After this it seems I was wrong: because it has increased!

Peter Barjonas
Caithness