SIR – In recent years we in the United Kingdom have witnessed numerous significant changes to our nation, changes which have manifested themselves on our streets and in our communities.

These can be viewed as progress, just another aspect of societies moving forward, but are they?

Labour, and now the Conservative Government (with their Lib Dem partners) have consistently betrayed the very people they purport to represent by agreeing to open the UK’s borders to every eastern European wishing to seek a new life here.

The only qualifying factor for these immigrants is that they have to belong to a country accepted into the European club.

Last year, for the first time, London became a place where British-born people (with English as their first language) became a minority.

Today, almost a million young British people are struggling to find a job, yet hundreds of thousands of eastern Europeans are employed here in areas as diverse as construction, hospitality, agriculture and retail. So where is the Government’s duty of care to the British people, and particularly to our young people?

Recently, we learned that even before Romania and Bulgaria (two of the poorest and least developed countries in Europe) become eligible for the free movement of their people, Britain has seen the number of Romanians and Bulgarians working here increase by 25 per cent in the last three months.

That figure makes no mention of all those who are not here to work, of course, and neither does it explain how they have been allowed to work here.

So, Harriett Baldwin MP, who appears to believe that those who do not believe in our continuing membership of the EU are somehow simplistic, should perhaps consider answering the following question. What precisely is the advantage (if any) for Britain in enduring the ‘open door’ policy foisted on us by an over-burdensome Brussels, especially at a time when our own young people are struggling to find work?

Perhaps she’d also like to explain how any government can call itself democratic when it runs for cover, or makes jam tomorrow promises, whenever the ‘R’ (referendum) word is mentioned?

WILL RICHARDS

Malvern