In the wake of the violent protests in Epping, Big Issue readers respond with their views on immigration.
Responses to a recent letter about Epping anti-immigration protest
I’ve lived in Sweden for 12 years now. The only dangerous moment was when I confronted a white supremacist protester who came to my town. The immigrants I met (and I suppose I’m one) are overwhelmingly nice. Immigration is good for a country.
@mhsmit, Instagram
As a white person who’s never been forced to seek asylum, it’ll always be ‘something that happened 3,000 miles away’ until you start listening to the communities you’re fighting against with the intent to understand.
@she_the_blackheart, Instagram
Many immigrants are those seeking safety from poverty, war, natural disasters, etc. Yet the governments of this world are obsessed with wrongly labelling good people as terrorists. Surely it is our government, that funds genocide in other countries, who we should label terrorists, not the ones seeking safety from other evils?
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We must fight back against the evil that runs this country. They are scared of community, they are scared of the idea we may love and not hate one another and we must frighten them with unity.
I’d much rather allow the people seeking safety into our country than the fascists spreading hate.
@prettyisolation.music, Instagram
Bald-faced lie
After a major, if partial, defeat in parliament over disability cuts, the disability minister Stephen Timms promised the House of Commons that the PIP benefit review would be co-produced by disabled people and their organisations.
What does he have in mind? “Ten people.” That’s what he said to the BBC podcast Access All: Disability News and Mental Health on Friday.
Timms may believe that the issue of disability cuts will drop from the news cycle by autumn 2026. He may believe that the UK government can avoid scrutiny and sneak through a flawed bill for short-term savings.
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He will not succeed in attacking disabled people, disabled students, and disabled workers. The Labour government will not succeed. MPs should be furious at the bald-faced lie that was sold to them.
Faith in Timms, when it comes to disabled people and their organisations in Wales, is at zero. We can’t get answers. We have waited months for a response. He even fobs off our MPs.
Disabled people, more than anyone, want a genuine review of the welfare system and support with entering, or keeping, employment. We were prepared to take part in good faith.
Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru) will be urgently reaching out to other disabled people and their organisations in Wales, as well as our allied trade unions, for an emergency “conference of war” to defend disabled people and carers.
The Welsh government must reconvene the Disability Rights Taskforce to lead a welfare review counterposed to the sham Timms review and the actions of the UK government.
If the UK government really wants to fix the welfare system, they need to sack Timms, and leave it to disabled people and DWP workers and our organisations and trade unions. We live with the problems of the welfare system every day. We know how to fix it. Labour ministers haven’t got a clue.
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Ben Golightly, Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru
Elder wisdom
Reading your article, research says: hate can fill the void. Young people are devoid of elders; people who can give inspiration and a sense of a future. We desperately need elders to talk to young people in whatever setting we can create. Youth clubs would be a start. If we ignore this, we must accept the consequences of our youth’s power to rewrite our history.
I am always moved when reading about people in other countries selling magazines like Big Issue in order to get by. It’s great that such magazines are there to help lift people up financially and spiritually when mainstream employment options may not be available or suitable. I would like life stories from vendors abroad to be a regular feature.
Clive Hopper, Swansea
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Yookay not OK
I always look at the pictures first and the photo of the dance with the robot in a retail park with a diverse crowd gave me a real smile. It’s so London – just a bunch of people having a good time and brightening up somewhere grey. Sad to then read on and realise some people would find it a negative!
