Top Tories say Cameron’s EU deal will not cut migration
DAVID Cameron’s controversial EU deal will not cut immigration and could even lead to a fresh surge in arrivals, senior ministers warned last night.
Senior Tories rubbished the Prime Minister’s claim that his deal with Brussels will help him hit his target of reducing net immigration to below 100,000 a year.
Employment minister Priti Patel said Mr Cameron’s much-vaunted benefit curbs on EU migrants would ‘do nothing to reduce the level of immigration from the EU’.
Fellow Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith even warned that the proposals could increase the number.
And a former adviser to Home Secretary Theresa May warned the only way to control soaring immigration numbers was to leave the EU.
The warnings came just 24 hours after Justice Secretary Michael Gove and deputy Dominic Raab torpedoed Mr Cameron’s claim that his reform package would be ‘legally binding’ despite his failure to have them enshrined in EU treaties.
Under the deal negotiated by Mr Cameron last week, Britain could apply for an ‘emergency brake’ on benefit payments for up to seven years. New arrivals would not be eligible for tax credits or benefits for an unspecified period. Payments would gradually be phased in until, after four years, they got their full entitlement.
Mr Cameron yesterday insisted the reforms would have an ‘impact’.
Speaking at a BAE Systems factory in Preston, he said: ‘Inside Europe we need to fix this issue of welfare. Of course now we’ve got this agreement that people cannot get £10,000 or sometimes even more, the minute they arrive in the UK and work that will have an impact.’
Immigration minister James Brokenshire yesterday said he backed the Prime Minister and believed the reforms would reduce the ‘pull factors’ that attract migrants to Britain.
But Mr Duncan Smith, in charge of the Government’s benefits policy, suggested it could make things worse.
He said: ‘Is this agreement negotiated in Brussels going to limit the numbers coming into the UK? My answer is no. The truth is there is one clear way that we could be sure to deliver on that manifesto commitment, and that’s to regain control of our borders.’
Mr Duncan Smith said migrant workers may bring forward their plans to come to the UK to beat the imposition of the new rules, unlikely to happen for more than a year.
The Work and Pensions Secretary also suggested that the negotiation publicity could even advertise Britain’s generous benefits system.
Miss Patel, a rising star whose parents fled to Britain from Uganda, said: ‘The proposed deal will do nothing to reduce the level of immigration from the EU, and will leave unelected politicians in Brussels and judges from the EU Court in control of our borders. The only way to take back control is to vote to leave.’
Stephen Parkinson, a Home Office adviser to Mrs May until last autumn, also dismissed the PM’s deal. Now involved with the Vote Leave campaign, he said: ‘Fiddling around with the benefits system is not going to have an effect on overall numbers.’
Former defence secretary Liam Fox said Tories who vote to stay in the EU were ‘breaking faith’ with the electorate as they would make it impossible to hit the manifesto target.
Dr Fox said the target should be abandoned unless Britain leaves the EU as there would be no hope of curbing free movement under the terms of Mr Cameron’s deal.
But Mr Cameron claimed immigration could rise even higher if Britain leaves. He said the UK would have to accept the EU’s free movement rules, but would not benefit from his reforms. He added: ‘If we left the EU, the deal I have just negotiated doesn’t stand – so we actually have to accept free movement if we were in the same position as Norway and we wouldn’t have the welfare restrictions that I have just negotiated.
‘So the best answer is to stay in a reformed European Union, put in place those welfare restrictions which will make a difference and do everything we can in all the other areas to bring down the excessively high rate of immigration into our country.’
‘Take back control of our borders’