Peter Murray (Voting Rights In Malta And The UK, April 29) only tells half the story about the grant of voting rights to immigrants like me or the unfortunates from the Third World. As immigrants get voting rights in the UK as well as free health services, state housing, education etc, the UK is a prime destination for those from the Third World.

Thus they tend to concentrate in certain areas and the indigenous population moves away.

Areas such as Tower Hamlets and Brent in London, Leicester and many others, now have a majority of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and so on.

This means that they can and do control the election of Members of Parliament, local councillors, etc.

This would not be so bad but when national elections come round some of the Imams at the local mosques tell their congregations who to vote for.

The effect of this is that the immigrants are a force to be respected by politicians and indeed that force can be a controlling one.

Just imagine what the situation would be like in Malta where the main parties have almost equal representation in Parliament and if immigrants had a majority in two or three constituencies. The Fijian islands in the South Pacific were a British colony and the native Fijians did not want to work in the sugar fields, so in the 19th century the British imported labour from the Indian sub-continent on seven-year contracts at the end of which time they were granted Fijian citizenship.

With the passage of time the descendants of these Indian immigrants now outnumber the native Fijians and despite the passage of over 100 years have not been integrated into the population in any meaningful way.

The result of this is that by the 1990s the Indian population elected an Indian majority in Parliament which was not acceptable to many Fijians and the military took over control of the country. Subsequently democracy was restored but again the military intervened and are currently controlling the country.

This is a highly unsatisfactory situation but it is hard to see what the future will hold for these very friendly people. Incidentally Fiji has at least two things in common with Malta, namely appalling roads and 50 or 60-year-old buses!