May stands firm in row over EU citizens
THERESA May and her supporters last night clashed with her leadership rivals over whether the 2.2million EU citizens living in the UK should be allowed to stay permanently.
MPs who backed Brexit – led by Mrs May’s main opponent, Andrea Leadsom – said migrants who had already settled in the UK were this country’s ‘friends’ and must not be sent home.
But the Home Secretary dug in on her position that the rights of EU nations would be part of the UK’s Brexit negotiations and there could be no guarantees.
The row came as the frontrunner to be the next French president said Britain’s border in Calais could be pushed back to the UK.
Former prime minister Alain Juppe, the most likely centre-Right candidate, suggested he would scrap the agreement with the UK which allows reciprocal border controls if he wins the presidency next year.
Ending the deal would move our border guards back to Kent and raises the prospect of migrant camps on British soil and a surge of arrivals in the UK.
On the issue of EU citizens in the UK, Immigration Minister James Brokenshire – a key supporter of Mrs May – said that allowing everybody to stay here could trigger a new influx ahead of Brexit being implemented.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who is also backing Mrs May, said it would be a mis- take to give a guarantee that all could stay, when the EU had not given the same commitment to the 1.2million British citizens living on the continent.
He said he hoped a deal could be struck with other EU countries so both groups of people can ‘carry on exactly as before’. But Energy Minister Mrs Leadsom, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb and Justice Secretary Michael Gove have all said the 2.2million EU nationals who are in the UK should have their rights protected.