Anyone know where the immigration White Paper is? Perhaps it’s being held up at Dover by customs officers
We were told it would be published last summer. Then we were told it would be published by the end of last year. Then July this year. Then autumn this year. Then December. Definitely December.
And yet here we are, a week into December, and the Government’s plan for post-brexit immigration remains nowhere to be seen. It now seems certain that MPS won’t even get to see it before they vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal next week.
And yesterday in the House of Commons, to a chorus of groans and jeers, Sajid Javid, MP for Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, begged MPS for just a little bit longer. The immigration White Paper, insisted the Home Secretary, would be published soon. “Yes, soon!”
But it was important, he added pleadingly, not to “rush it”.
Rush it? No one could accuse the Government of that. They’ve been promising this White Paper since the dawn of time.
It’s mentioned in The Canterbury Tales, the Domesday Book, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Homer’s Odyssey. When Christ returned from 40 days and 40 nights alone in the desert, the first thing He asked was: “Any news on the Government’s immigration White Paper?”
Indeed, archaeologists recently discovered a 500,000-year-old cave painting just outside Stoke which depicts a tiny Theresa May promising a tribe of men in animal skins that it’ll definitely be published in time for the discovery of fire.
But no. Still no sign.
All the same, it was hard not to feel some sympathy for Mr Javid yesterday. Especially since it was his 49th birthday. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it,” he told the Commons drily. And as a special treat, the Speaker humiliated him in front of the whole House.
It happened at Prime Minister’s Questions. When Jeremy Corbyn claimed that the Government had called disabled people “scroungers”, Mr Javid protested and urged the Speaker – John Bercow – to make Mr Corbyn take it back. The Speaker goggled at Mr Javid, as though he’d never heard such an impertinent suggestion.
“I do not need any advice from the Home Secretary,” he squawked.
“He should seek to discharge his own obligations in his office to the best of his ability. I require no advice from the right honourable gentleman on the discharge of mine! Be clear about that!”
Mr Bercow has never, it’s safe to say, been the object of universal admiration on the Tory benches. But even by his standards this was a startling outburst. Scathing, imperious, and blisteringly disdainful, he sounded as if he were berating some grubby little urchin who’d put a football through his cucumber frame.
His authority duly asserted, the Speaker plumped himself back down on his chair, raised his right hand – and made a scornful little swiping motion, as though shooing away a fly.
I wonder why he was in such a foul mood? Perhaps he was just tired. The day before, he’d spent a staggering 13 and a half hours in his chair, listening to MPS drone on. Enough to drive anyone to the edge.
By the time he left the chamber it had gone one in the morning. And there are days more of this marathon Brexit debate still to go. And the vote isn’t until Tuesday next week.
Lord knows what sort of temper he’ll be in by then. He’ll probably be jumping up and down on the dispatch box, whirling the ceremonial mace around his head, and wearing a cape made from junior whips’ scalps.