Staying in the EU will hit the poor the most, says IDS
IAIN Duncan Smith said Brussels has ‘become a force for social injustice’, with the poor suffering most from the effects of mass migration.
In a stinging attack on the ‘dysfunctional, declining, high unemployment EU’, he said a Brexit vote would allow the UK to ‘protect the people who often find themselves at the sharp end of global economic forces and technological change’.
Mr Duncan Smith cited a Bank of England study last year which found a ten percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants is ‘associated with’ a 2 per cent fall in pay.
He added: ‘The downward pressure on wages is a trend that will only get worse if we continue to have open borders with the EU – and would get most difficult in a recession.’
In addition, he claimed Turkish membership of the EU is ‘on the ballot paper’ in the June referendum.
In a hard-hitting intervention, the former Tory leader said immigration from the EU had driven down wages, put unsustainable pressure on public services and fuelled the housing crisis.
And he warned unchecked immigration could fuel an ‘explosion’ in inequality. He said only Brexit would allow the Government to meet its manifesto pledge to cut net immigration to below 100,000 a year.
‘This vote is happening at a time of enormous global economic upheaval,’ he said. ‘We are at a point in the development of the world economy where, if we are not careful, we are going to see an explosion of have-nots. We are going to see increasing divides between people who have a home of their own and those who are, to coin a phrase, at the back of a queue, a lengthening queue, to ever get on the housing ladder.
‘People who have jobs that aren’t threatened by automation and people who live in the shadow of the impact of technological innovation. People who benefit from the immigration of cheap nannies and baristas and labourers – and people who can’t find work because of uncontrolled immigration.’
Mr Duncan Smith, who quit the Cabinet in March, also directly contradicted David Cameron over Turkey. The Prime Minister said last week Turkish membership of the EU was not ‘remotely on the cards’ and advised concerned voters: ‘Don’t think about it.’
But, speaking at a Vote Leave event in London, Mr Duncan Smith said Turkey’s accession to the EU was inevitable – and pointed out that Mr Cameron was in favour of it.
‘Then, of course, the next stage is for them to enter the European Union. The negotiations will begin, they were told part of the deal for getting illegal migrants back from Greece to Turkey has been they would get accelerated negotiations.’
Mr Duncan Smith accused pro-Brussels campaigners of glossing over the fact that Turkey, Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia are all in the process of joining the EU, potentially opening up free movement to another 88 million people.
He added: ‘If you vote to remain in the EU the risks are enormous – uncontrolled migration, the arrival of new nation states who have much lower income levels than the UK.’ Mr Duncan Smith also warned that mass immigration was wrecking young people’s dreams of home ownership.
He said two-thirds of additional households created in the UK were now headed by a person who was born abroad – and he warned that the UK will have to build 240 homes a day just to cater for demand from new migrants.
But former Labour Cabinet minister Yvette Cooper said the poor would be hit hardest by the economic disruption of a Brexit vote. She said: ‘Iain Duncan Smith has consistently opposed the very measures working people rely on, whether the minimum wage or protecting vital workers’ rights.’