Cabinet pressure on May to soften EUmigrant stance

THERESA May is under pressure to offer special access to EU migrants after Brexit to secure a better trade deal.

In public, the Prime Minister has vowed to ‘take back control’ of Britain’s borders – with the Tories aiming to cut net migration to below 100,000 a year.

But Cabinet ministers are urging her privately to leave the door open to ‘ preferential access’ for migrants from the EU. Senior ministers including Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnhe

‘Back door free movement’

son and Brexit Secretary David Davis hope this compromise could then be used as leverage to secure a better trade deal from Brussels.

One Cabinet source said immigration was ‘the one area they’ll all happily trade’ during the negotiations with the EU.

The source said Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley were the only members of Mrs May’s 11strong Brexit ‘war cabinet’ who backed the official stance.

Mrs May is also under pressure from big business not to cut off the supply of cheap migrant labour from Europe that firms have relied upon for years. But any attempt to water down controls on EU migrants will be viewed with suspicion by Eurosceptics. Last night Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘After Brexit, we should have a single policy that treats all countries fairly. It must not be back door free movement.’

Migration Watch chairman Andrew Green also warned against backsliding on the issue. Lord Green, an informal adviser on immigration to ministers, said: ‘The public have been repeatedly promised control over immigration – which they have rightly interpreted as a reduction.

‘Failure to deliver will severely shake public confidence, certainly in the Conservative Party, but also in our political system as a whole.’

A leaked Home Office document states the Government’s ‘default position’ is to create an immigration system where migrants from the EU are treated the same way as those from the rest of the world.

But Miss Rudd told MPs last week that the Cabinet had not yet discussed what the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system should look like. And Mr Davis has refused to rule out offering Brussels preferential treatment. He told the Spectator magazine Britain’s immigration policy would be run ‘in the economic interests of the nation’.