Free movement WILL be curbed after October
...as Gove insists EU settlement plan ‘is working’
THE Home Office yesterday dismissed reports that plans to curb the free movement of people from the EU into Britain on October 31 had been postponed.
Sources insisted that immigration rules would be tightened immediately after Brexit.
And Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to confirm that in the event of a No Deal Brexit, criminals will find it much harder to enter the UK – and under one proposal, anyone who had been previously senusing tenced to 12 months or more could be barred.
Ministers were reported to have shelved the idea of formally ending free movement last week after being warned it could only be achieved primary legislation, which the Government does not have time to pass. But sources yesterday dismissed the issue as ‘a technicality’ that would not prevent ministers tightening up immigration rules immediately after Brexit.
Last night a Home Office source said: ‘The Home Secretary and Prime Minister have both made clear that freedom of movement as we currently know it will end on October 31.
‘In a No Deal scenario, we will be ensuring we take a tough stance on criminals – something we couldn’t do while an EU member. The Government will be setting out further details in the coming days.’
Theresa May had planned to have a new Immigration Act in place in time for the UK’s departure from the EU. But Boris Johnson has said he wants to consult on a new Australian-style pointsbased system.
Last night, Michael Gove – the Cabinet minister in charge of No Deal Brexit planning – insisted the scheme designed to grant residency rights to up to 3.8million EU citizens was ‘working very successfully’ – after a fellow Brexiteer Tory warned it could become ‘another Windrush scandal’.
The EU Settlement Scheme was launched earlier this year to enable EU nationals living in the UK to establish their permanent right to live in Britain. But campaigners have claimed the scheme is failing, with charities reporting cases of citizens who qualify for ‘settled status’ being wrongly classified in the ‘presettled’ bracket, which affords them fewer rights.
Last week, Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP for the South East, said that he had been contacted by EU nationals who had been denied settled status ‘despite living here for years’. He urged Miss Patel to ‘help sort this out... before we end up with another Windrush scandal’ – a reference to the immigration fiasco last year when Commonwealth migrants living here legally were kicked out of the country or detained.
Questioned about the scheme on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Mr Gove said: ‘The scheme has been working very successfully – thousands of people have been applying every day and are being granted settled status.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Nobody has been granted pre-settled status without first being offered the opportunity to submit evidence that they qualify for settled status.’
Last night it was reported that leaving the EU without a deal would mean no new applications would be accepted from asylum-seeking children hoping to be reunited with relatives in the UK. Comment – Page 16
‘A tough stance on criminals’
WHEN the history books are written, might this week be the one that defines British politics for years to come?
Tomorrow, anti-Brexit MPs return to Westminster from their summer holidays plotting to make trouble for Boris Johnson.
In all likelihood, embittered Remainers will try to wrest control of Parliament to pass a law banning the Prime Minister from leaving the EU without a deal. But by destroying the threat of No Deal, they’re harming the best chance of coaxing Brussels’ functionaries to offer concessions.
With tedious predictability, Labour will seek assistance from the wretched Speaker John Bercow. His partisan connivance, and hypocritical willingness to torch the Parliamentary rule-book, is the real constitutional outrage.
Disgracefully, they will be aided and abetted by deluded Tory rebels.
They pretend to be principled by claiming they want to honour the 2017 election manifesto. In truth, most want to stop Brexit – and frustrate the Government as it tries to implement the biggest democratic mandate in British history.
Perhaps a threat to sack treacherous Tories who stick their fingers in their ears and vote with Jeremy Corbyn will focus minds.
Mr Johnson must be resilient. In the real world, people are tearing their hair out at the chicanery of the vainglorious egotists in this failing Parliament as it shamelessly frustrates the will of the people.
As Michael Gove pithily put it, there is now light at the end of the tunnel. The last thing Britain needs is more tunnel.