MAY’S WARNING ON MIGRATION
She says run up to Brexit could bring rush and rejects a ‘coronation’
IMMIGRATION could surge in the coming years as Europeans seek to enter the UK before Brexit takes effect, Theresa May warned yesterday.
The Home Secretary said she hoped to bring down net migration to ‘sustainable levels’ – but added that it was impossible to put a timescale on it.
And she suggested she would like EU migrants already in Britain to be able to stay after we leave the bloc, although she said it was a matter for negotiation.
Speaking on ITV’s Peston on Sunday show, she said: ‘If we’re looking ahead over the coming months and years once we get the issue of the EU negotiation sorted, the right deal for Britain, we may very well see in the run-up to that, people wanting to come here to the UK before that exit happens.
‘So there are factors you can’t always predict what the timing and numbers of those will be.’
Mrs May also appeared to back away from the Conservative Party’s longstanding target to get net migration down to the tens of thousands – talking instead of ‘sustainable levels’.
She said: ‘There’s still a job to be done
‘We need to bring immigration down’ ‘I have given power away’
from people outside the EU. There’s also, of course, the future negotiation in relation to free movement for people coming from inside the EU.
‘I’m very clear the Brexit vote gave us a very clear message from people that we couldn’t allow free movement to continue as it had hitherto.
‘We need to bring control into movement of people coming into the UK from the EU. So we’ve got to move ahead… dealing with both those types of immigration. But still I believe we should have that goal of bringing immigration down to sustainable levels.’
She added that she wants to ‘guarantee the position’ for EU citizens currently living in the UK and British citizens living in EU countries.
‘What’s important is there will be a negotiation here as to how we deal with that issue of people who are already here and who have established life here and Brits who have established a life in other countries within the EU,’ she said. ‘The position at the moment is as it has been, there’s no change at the moment, but of course we have to factor that into negotiations.’
Mrs May has also dismissed suggestions she could be crowned as Tory leader without the party membership having their say.
Some party grandees had said that, for the sake of party unity, other candidates should drop out of the race to allow the runaway favourite to take the top job.
But she rejected the calls yesterday, demanding a ‘proper contest’. A poll at the weekend showed Mrs May was backed by 60 per cent of Tory voters, with Justice Secretary Michael Gove trailing on just 10 per cent. The Home Secretary now has the declared support of more than 100 MPs – higher than her four rivals’ combined total.
Her backers include heavy- weight figures such as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who today says that now is not the time for the ‘talent of the future’.
In an article for the Mail (right), he said only Mrs May had the experience needed to conduct complicated Brexit negotiations.
And last night Philip Hammond became the eighth Cabinet minister to back Mrs May.
The Foreign Secretary told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I know that she has the qualities and the character to take our country forward and, with her quietly determined, down-to-earth style, to re-unite us after the referendum, behind a plan to address the deep divisions in our society that it has exposed.’
MPs will hold their first ballot tomorrow to whittle down the five leadership choices to four.
Further votes will be held on Thursday and the following Tuesday, leaving two MPs left in the race. Tory party rules state these candidates will then go forward to the party membership. Yesterday Mrs May dismissed suggestions that one candidate should be given a clear run if they receive overwhelming support from Tory MPs in early rounds.
‘There should be a contest,’ she said. ‘I think it’s important [Tory] members have their opportunity to have their say and I think what people want to hear is what the arguments are and people putting those arguments together. I think there should be a proper contest and obviously I hope I’m one of the candidates that will go forward to the membership. I don’t take anything for granted.’
Mrs May also dismissed holding an early general election for the new prime minister as ‘another destabilising factor’ for the economy. And she denied claims she was a ‘control freak’, saying she had handed over power in her time at the Home Office.
She said: ‘If somehow I was a control freak and people didn’t get on and like my style, we wouldn’t have a majority of ministers who’ve worked with me actually backing me.’
Former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Mrs May’s words ‘will only have increased the anxiety felt by EU citizens currently living in the UK and British citizens living in the EU’.
Nick Boles, campaign manager for Mr Gove, said the ‘residency rights of EU citizens should not be put in doubt. Michael Gove is clear that they are valued members of society’. The same assurance was given by fellow contender Andrea Leadsom.
Turkey wants to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees fleeing war, its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. It comes as the country hopes to join the EU.