Corbyn: We can’t limit EU migrants
JEREMY Corbyn yesterday admitted there was no upper limit on immigration while Britain is inside the EU – and blamed Brussels for driving huge numbers of workers to the UK.
But the Labour leader said there should be no changes to Brussels’ edicts on free movement, which allow hundreds of thousands of EU citizens to move here every year.
This is despite immigration repeatedly being the top concern cited by Labour voters on the doorstep.
Getting out the working-class Labour vote is seen as vital to the Remain camp’s chances of success.
But, putting himself at odds with countless Labour voters, Mr Corbyn said: ‘The very principle of a single market across Europe is the free movement of people.’
Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show if there should be an upper limit on numbers flocking here, Mr Corbyn said: ‘I don’t think you can have one while you have the free movement of labour.’
He accused Brussels of driving large numbers of EU citizens to the UK through austerity, adding: ‘I think the free movement of labour means you have to balance the economy, so you have to improve living standards … that means the European Union’s appalling treatment of Greece … that is a problem.
‘If you actually deliberately lower living standards and increase poverty in certain countries … you’re bound to have a flow of people looking for somewhere else to go.’
Leave campaigners said he had laid bare the truth about immigration. Labour MP and Vote Leave chairman Gisela Stuart said: ‘The In campaign have no answers on how we can control immigration if we stay in the EU… no plan for how we will fund the NHS… no plan for where we will build the extra houses… no plan to help people who will see further pressure on their pay packets.’
Ex-Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said the admission there can be no upper migration limit while Britain is in the EU was ‘finally some honesty from the In campaign’.
In a separate interview yesterday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan also said there should be no upper limit.
The comments cap a week of chaos among Labour ranks over the issue. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the party would ‘look again’ at free movement of labour.
Deputy leader Tom Watson said the party would have to make the case to revise the EU edict. He added that while he backed In, the issue of uncontrolled migration was ‘coming up on the doorstep’ and people needed reassurance.
Ukip’s Mike Hookem said Labour’s policy on immigration was ‘farcical’ and ‘they do not have an answer to people’s genuine concerns’.
It came as George Osborne was accused of being ‘wrong’ on immigration by economist Jonathan Portes. The Chancellor told ITV he’d ‘seen absolutely no evidence migration levels will fall’ in the event of Brexit.
But a report by Mr Portes’s thinktank NIESR worked on the basis a Leave vote would see net migration from the EU fall by two thirds compared with a Remain vote.
‘No answer to genuine concerns’