| DON'T FOCUS ON IMMIGRATION MYTHS |
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STEPHEN GEE, Liberal Democrat candidate for Wimbledon - edited version appears in Wimbledon Guardian (28/04/05) "Are you thinking what we’re thinking? The advert run by the Conservatives in the Wimbledon Guardian (21/04/05) is scare-mongering at its worst, inaccurate and panders to racist elements in society. To suggest that Merton residents are being denied local services because the council has spent “over £27 million supporting asylum since 1997” is misleading to say the least. Most of the money councils spend on supporting asylum is returned to them by central government. For example, last year Merton received a grant of £3 million for this purpose. If £28 million has been spent by Merton Council on asylum since 1997, this works out at £3.5 million a year on average, so in 2004 it would have only cost the council a net amount of £500,000 to deal with asylum (0.1% of its expenditure). A further inaccuracy in the advert is that it is not Liberal Democrat policy to “give complete control of our asylum and immigration systems to Brussels”, but instead to share the burden of asylum fairly amongst our European partners. The Conservatives seem happy to confuse asylum with immigration; but migrants are essential to our economy. Immigration should be assessed on economic need (something that the CBI fully agrees with). The CBI has also clearly stated that Conservative policy on this issue would stifle growth in the economy. What the Conservatives should actually be asking is whether Labour-run Merton Council provides a level of service consistent with the amount of council tax it charges (one of the highest in London), but of course you can’t do that when you’re running a single issue campaign."
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