Blair calls for fresh immigration rules in bid to alter Brexit talks

Tony Blair has called for tough new immigration rules which would allow the UK to exercise more control over who comes into the country without leaving the European Union.

The former Prime Minister admitted the open borders he presided over are no longer appropriate and put his name to a report calling for tighter domestic controls and the negotiation of modified free movement rules with the EU.

This would fulfil the will of the people expressed in last year’s Brexit vote while allowing Britain to stay in the EU, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour should back the approach, he said.

Mr Blair’s intervention appears designed to provoke a fundamental shift in the Brexit debate and solve the seemingly intractable tradeoff between the economy and immigration.

Prime Minister Theresa May has made controlling immigration her absolute Brexit priority but Brussels has stressed the UK will have to leave the single market if it wants to end the free movement of EU nationals.

But in an article for a Sunday newspaper, Mr Blair said: “There is no diversion possible from Brexit without addressing the grievances which gave rise to it.

“Paradoxically, we have to respect the referendum vote to change it.”

He went on: “We can curtail the things that people feel are damaging about European immigration, both by domestic policy change and by agreeing change within Europe.

“This is precisely the territory the Labour Party should camp upon.”

Mr Blair has been blamed in many quarters for the rise in public concern about immigration which culminated in the Brexit vote, after failing to impose transitional controls on migrants from new EU member states in 2004.

But he said: “Back then the economy was strong, the workers needed ”, adding :“the times were different; the sentiment was different; and intelligent politics takes account of such change.”

“There is no diversion possible from Brexit without addressing the grievances which gave rise to it”

TONY BLAIR