Labour’s free movement may treble immigration, says Patel
PRITI PATEL has moved to put immigration centre-stage in the election by claiming Labour’s plan to extend freedom of movement could treble net migration to 840,000 a year.
The Home Secretary said Labour’s conference policy pledge to “maintain and extend freedom of movement rights” could almost double the current 9.3 million foreign-born migrants living in the UK within a decade.
She used official modelling to claim there would be a nine-fold increase in net migration from countries within a “short-haul” flight in Europe and Africa and an 80 per cent rise from “longhaul” destinations.
This would come on top of the net 260,000 migration a year from existing European Economic Area (EEA) countries to produce the total of 840,000.
The move to resurrect an issue that played a pivotal role in the successful Leave campaign in the EU referendum provoked a furious row with Labour, which called the figures “fake news”.
But Jeremy Corbyn refused to say whether Labour would back away from its official conference policy, and ditch it from the manifesto.
Earlier this week, Mr Corbyn said he wanted free movement to continue while shadow chancellor John Mcdonnell said: “We’re going to have an immigration policy which has as much freedom of movement as possible.”
Unite chief Len Mccluskey, Mr Corbyn’s key union supporter, has, however, urged the Labour leader to abandon any extension of free movement amid fears it could alienate tradipoints tional working class supporters, particularly in Northern Leave seats.
Exploiting the divisions in Labour, Ms Patel highlighted the Conservatives manifesto pledges, saying: “Under Corbyn’s Labour, immigration would surge, and put huge strain on schools and our NHS. He has no credible plan for how to deal with the consequences of his open borders policy. The biggest risk to our NHS is Corbyn’s plans for uncontrolled and unlimited immigration, forever.
“By contrast, the Conservatives will get Brexit done, end free movement and introduce an Australian-style system so that we can control our borders and protect our public services. We will reduce immigration overall while being more open and flexible to the highly skilled people we need, such as scientists and doctors. This can only happen if people vote for a Conservative majority government so we can leave the EU with a deal.”
The calculations, produced by the Conservative Research Department, use official figures to project a continuing current annual trend of 260,000 net migration from the EU.
Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “This is more fake news from the Conservative Party’s make-believe research department. Unlike the Tories, we won’t scapegoat migrants or deport our own Windrush generation citizens. The damage done to our society has been through damaging Conservative cuts to our public services, not by EU nationals coming to work in them.”
A senior Labour figure yesterday admitted there are splits in the party. “There are conflicting views,” said the source. “Northern MPS want a clear restriction on freedom of movement, the London MPS are not so bothered about it. However, equally they are all very aware that any trade deal we do with Europe or any other country is going to require some unrestricted [immigration] or movement. I am absolutely sure that it will not be total free movement.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said Labour would maintain freedom of movement with the EU for the NHS after Brexit. He said Labour would not “stand in the way” of unlimited numbers of doctors and nurses arriving from the Continent.
Speaking on the campaign trail in Scotland, Mr Corbyn said a decision on freedom of movement would be taken at a “clause five” meeting this weekend to finalise the manifesto. He said: “Party conference did come to a view but the clause five meeting is the one that actually decides what goes in the manifesto, which is not the same thing as conference decisions.”
The row came as it emerged Britain has up to 1.2million illegal immigrants, a quarter of all those that have unlawfully entered Europe.
More than half have lived illegally in the UK for more than five years and a third more than 10 years, according to the analysis by the respected Pew Research Centre.
Only Germany has a similar number of illegal immigrants, with between one million and 1.2 million, which means that it and the UK account for half of all Europe’s illegal immigrants.
‘The biggest risk to our NHS is Corbyn’s plans for uncontrolled and unlimited immigration, forever’’