Workers Party spokesperson Patrick Crossan has called for support for the stand taken by @GaryLineker in the latest row on immigration.

“Not only is Gary right to publicly criticise the government’s cruel and inhumane ‘Stop the Boats’ immigration policy”, Patrick said, “but he is doing what anyone with a social conscience should be doing and raising the kind of questions that the mainstream media spend all their time avoiding”.

“Last year the UK took in 137,000 refugees. That is fifteen thousand fewer than arrived sixty years ago in 1960. The UK takes in considerably less refugees and asylum seekers than almost every other European country’, Patrick said.

‘It is the fifth largest economy in the world. Not only can it absorb people from other countries, it needs them and the considerable economic benefits that come from their skills and labour.

‘We are not being ‘invaded’, and neither Britain nor Ireland is ‘full’ as the right-wing racists claim.’ he said

‘The best immigration policies are those that provide safe, humane and welcoming routes into the country.

‘Ultimately, immigration and refugee crisis will only be addressed when NATO, the United States and their allies stop their invasions, wars of aggression and proxy conflicts which are forcing thousands of people to be displaced in the first instance’, Patrick concluded.