SIR – Here we go again! GB Dipper (letters, April 5) gives us another of his plain ignorant rants on immigration, and I wonder if he had bothered to read mine of March 29..

It is just not true that “immigrants... flock to this country to milk the system”.

He seems blissfully (wilfully?) unaware of the EU law – no less – which states that, before EU citizens who are “not active in the labour market” become eligible for social security, they must pass a strict “habitual residence test” to prove that they have a genuine link with the UK. Existing rules are actually most stringent, and are designed precisely to prevent “benefits tourism”.

(in any event, many of our benefits are not as “generous” as those elsewhere in Europe.) I previously described the official statistics which show that immigrants are less likely to claim benefits than our indigenous population; also that they contribute more to the public purse than they take out (another fact completely turned on its head by Mr Dipper).

He cannot, therefore, successfully attack immigration on economic grounds, and I wonder if these are a fig-leaf; whether the real problem for him is something – shall we say – more “cultural”.

Now let’s see something scary about Romanians and Bulgarians.

DAVID BARLOW

Worcester