The Rt Hon Richard Benyon MP, Parliamentary Under-secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Dear Minister,

Thank you for you letter.

Even though I am no longer your constituent it is nice of you to continue to write to me. Almost exactly two years ago I wrote to you about Refugee and Migrant Justice. I am pleased to know you are still interested in immigration.

I must admit, I was a little, confused by the content of your letter. When I wrote to you I was asking for funding reform for a charity that your government was starving of funds. There were more than 10,000 asylum seekers who could have been affected. They would have effectively been cut off from legal help in navigating the  thicket that is UK immigration law. Last year they were abandoned as Refugee and Migrant Justice closed its doors.

Your letter boasts of how mean you have been to immigrants. Shurely shome mishtake?

I once thought of you as a competent Tory, something in short supply, but it turns out I may have been wrong. It is of course very efficient of you to have a list dedicated to people with “concerns” about immigrations. I do find it slightly amazing you don’t have a separate list for people whose “concerns” regard the conduct of your government.

Turing to your letter, your first point about capping the numbers of non-EU workers allowed to enter the UK interested me a lot. I am happy to see you are proud the Tories have generated such an anaemic recovery that nobody wants to live here. I still do, just, but your letter is certainly giving me pause to consider that too.

Allow me to thank you for letting me know you have “reformed the student visa system.” It is good to know who to blame when my friends are forced out of the country. I’ve just finished my studies at LSE, so like last year it is my friends you will be forcing out. The deportation of people more diligent and intelligent than I is something of which you should be so proud.

I am pleased to hear that your Government is taking steps to cripple one of the UK’s most competitive export industries. Your government’s own Department for Business, Innovation and Skills estimates Higher Education contributes around £8 billion a year. Congratulations on making me poorer in friends and money.

I am impressed by your measure to punish skilled workers who earn less than £35,000 a year  by deporting them. It is certainly a tremendous way to extend your government’s programme to punish people who dare to be working class beyond this country’s shores. How it is to make me better off I am not sure.

Of course merely punishing working class people is not enough, some of those working class people want to breed. Punishing poor people in love by preventing poor people bringing their spouse to the UK is a lovely touch. Again, I am unsure how this is to make me better off.

I don’t want much from an MP. Effectively labelled spreadsheets is pretty low down the list. Not relishing the opportunity to punish people for being poor, in love, or freshly graduated and intelligent are even more fundamental. Perhaps what I find most offputting is that you presume I share your Party’s enthusiasm. More evidence of the Tory Party’s natural arrogance.

I am pleased to say you are no longer my MP Richard, but I do hope this letter finds you well.

Yours sincerely,

Left Outside