Five million MORE on way, says Gove

MORE than five million European migrants could flock to Britain by 2030 if we stay in the European Union, Michael Gove claimed yesterday.

The Justice Secretary said the potential accession of Turkey, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia to the EU would result in soaring immigration levels.

Projections from the Vote Leave campaign suggest as many as 5.2million migrants could arrive over the next 15 years – equivalent to the entire population of Scotland.

Mr Gove said the influx would place unsustainable pressure on the NHS, with demand for A&E services rising by up to 57 per cent.

Speaking at an event in London, he said the new national living wage would prove irresist- ible to workers in low-pay countries such as Turkey. He added: ‘The reality is that voting to remain in the EU – and therefore voting to continue with a policy of free movement and enlargement – will only put huge additional pressure on the NHS.

‘The official response, given the vote in a month’s time, will be that further enlargement is “not on the agenda”. But enlargement is the explicit policy not just of the European Commission but of the British Government.

‘The public has never been given a vote on this enlargement. We never got a vote on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania.

‘And if we vote to remain then there will be no future occasion on which we can vote to prevent the further enlargement of the EU.’

Mr Gove said leaving the Brussels club would also free up resources to give the NHS cash to help it cope with the pressures of a rising as well as ageing population.

Vote Leave said net migration from the EU would be between 3.2million and 5.2million if we voted to stay in the EU.

The figures assume that the five countries bidding to join are allowed in in 2020.

They also assume that, as with the accession of Poland, the Government chooses not to impose any ‘transitional controls’ restricting the free movement of people in the following years.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond yesterday dismissed the claims, saying: ‘These fig- ures are very often plucked from thin air – they are not designed to inform, they are designed to confuse.’

He said the Government ‘will not contemplate’ allowing new EU countries to join without transitional controls. David Cameron has claimed that Turkish membership is ‘not on the ballot paper’ as it will not join for many years.

But Mr Gove insisted his figures were robust, saying that official projections had frequently underestimated numbers in the past.

Last night it emerged that Boris Johnson called ten years ago for Turkey to be allowed to join the EU. in a 2006 film for the BBC, he said it would be a ‘great moment’ when the two halves of the Roman Empire ‘are at last reunited in an expanded European Union’.

EACH day brings fresh warnings that this country faces utterly unprecedented and unsustainable levels of immigration.

Michael Gove yesterday pointed out that unless we leave the EU and regain control of our own borders, we can expect an influx of up to 5.2million by 2030, equivalent to Scotland’s population.

As Mr Gove says, ‘the attraction of Britain is obvious’, including free health care and the National Living Wage, set at a rate which many continental workers have no hope of getting at home.

No wonder there are already over two million EU workers in this country, and even the Treasury expects another three million by 2030. New figures have revealed that foreign-born workers accounted for four-fifths of the 413,000 increase in employment in the year to March.

Such headlong, uncontrolled population growth places intolerable strain on every service, from overstrained hospitals – reporting record deficits – to housing, where even the European Commission admits there is an ‘acute’ crisis.

The Mail today publishes the story of Saliman Barci, a one-legged Albanian double killer who in 2002 lied his way into this country by pretending to be a Kosovan refugee.

He was given asylum, a council house, a new leg and British citizenship, received tens of thousands of pounds in benefits while trading in cocaine, and is getting huge sums in legal aid to fight extradition.

And now, yes, you guessed it, Barci claims it would breach his human rights to be sent back to Albania, where he has been convicted of those murders and faces a 25-year prison sentence. This profoundly depressing cameo potently demonstrates all the reasons why this country must regain control of its own borders and amend or abandon the disastrous Human Rights Act.

Britain is not a racist country, but we simply can’t go on being the destination of choice for millions of economic migrants fleeing a lower standard of living on the continent and elsewhere.

Voters know from painful experience, gained while trying to find houses, schools, health care and jobs, that the numbers arriving here are far too great.

But our pampered liberal elite, waited upon hand and foot by domestic servants from across the EU, turns a determinedly deaf ear to anyone who tries to explain the drawbacks of mass migration.