There was a time when the country I was so proud to be a member of used to give help and succour to genuine refugees from despotic regimes such as that of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

Now we force them to commit offences that will send them to prison, such as Edward Mukuze as reported in the Echo on July 30, who resorted to using a false passport in order to stay here and work.

When are we going to wake up and leave the EU, enabling us to stop the mass immigration from which we now suffer, and to return to being a country that I and others can be proud of again?

Alan Kebbell, Southampton.