WHY I FEAR A FRESH STAMPEDE
EARLIER this week we were treated to the latest official disaster-movie script about the world coming to an end if Britain’s voters decide to leave the European Union. Treasury civil servants cooked up numbers for what will happen to our incomes after gazing into their crystal balls and trying to guess what the world is going to look like in 14 years’ time.
In reality, they have enough trouble working out what will happen 14 weeks ahead. But buried in the phoney forecasts there lurk some truly alarming numbers. The official assumption is immigration will add at least three million to our population by 2030. That’s 200,000 people, the equivalent to building a new town the size of Swindon or Aberdeen every year.
In other words, just a year after the Conservatives were returned to office, the Treasury admits it has given up on one of the key promises that the British people elected us to deliver – to cut net immigration to ‘the tens of thousands’.
They are doing this because of their desperation to remain part of the Brussels club whatever the cost to people’s lives.
British people want to take back control of their borders, and introduce an immigration system that works for the British people which would involve allowing in migrants whose skills we need, as well as those who are fleeing persecution.We have a duty to see to it that the people who elected us have good quality homes and public services. The arrival of a staggering quarter of a million people a year from Europe alone makes that an impossibility.
People are already experiencing the cost of uncontrolled immigration – with pressure on jobs, wages, and housing – not to mention ever- increasing waiting times at hospitals that are full to capacity, and families struggling to find places for their children at our oversubscribed schools. The hundreds of millions of pounds we send every week to the EU could be used to invest in our stretched public services – if we leave the EU and take back control over how our money is spent.
Controlling our borders would be fairer for migrants themselves. We would end the scandal of unscrupulous employers cramming European workers into substandard housing and requiring them to pay rent that effectively pushes their pay below the minimum wage. This would reduce exploitation and at the same time mean rogue employers were not unfairly undercutting British workers. The bill for immigration hits all of us through our tax bills. The Prime Minister said last year that 40 per cent of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system, with each family claiming an average of £6,000 a year.
The PM wanted to address this – to prevent migrants claiming any benefits for four years after they come to Britain. The EU refused to grant it. He said he wanted to end the madness of sending child benefit to migrants’ children who don’t even live in this country. The EU refused that as well.
I bet I’m not alone in finding it galling to watch a British Prime Minister running around Europe asking for a decent settlement, but only getting crumbs from the top table.
THE truth is the EU is incapable of reform. It’s a failing project that no one in their right mind would join now. If we don’t leave, I fear that the pressures Brits are already facing will only get worse – because rather than reducing the pull factors the Government is increasing them.
I cheered the introduction of the National Living Wage, but when take-home pay in Britain is already more than five times higher than in the poorest EU countries, such a jump in wages will surely lead to another stampede to our borders.
To make the Living Wage work for British people, we need to be able to control the number of people coming in.
If we Vote Leave we can take back control of our country and our borders.We can look forward to a more secure, as well as a more positive and more prosperous future.
Now is the time to vote to leave the EU and make June 23 Independence Day.