EU makes it harder for us to control migration, admits Home Secretary
BEING in the EU makes it harder to control immigration, Theresa May admitted yesterday.
In an uncomfortable TV interview, the Home Secretary also conceded that immigration levels were too high.
And she will say in a speech today that it would be wrong to claim that ‘everything about the EU is perfect’. She will argue instead that, on balance, it is better to vote Remain on June 23.
Her comments about the downsides of EU membership set her apart from other Remain ministers, who insist the EU is a force for good. She said: ‘Yes, free movement makes it harder to control immigration – but it doesn’t make it impossible to control immigration.’
Mrs May, who at one stage was being lobbied to lead the Out campaign, insisted that allowing free movement to EU citizens was not the same as having no border controls.
On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show she also came under repeated pressure over a Treasury figure showing net migration will add another three million to the population by 2030.
Mrs May said: ‘Immigration is too high and we need to control immigration.’
Her Cabinet colleague Michael Gove warns in today’s Times of a migration ‘free for all’ if Britain stays in the EU.
The Justice Secretary said the potential accession of five countries, including Albania and Turkey, would give millions of people the right to move here. He said this would cause a ‘direct and serious threat’ to public services, living standards and community harmony.
On borders, Mrs May argued that the worst criminals from Europe could, in theory, be turned back. But Eurosceptic ministers pointed out that, as a result of diktats issued by Brussels, only 6,000 people had been refused entry over the past five years. Ten times as many nonEU citizens have been turned away. A string of murderers and rapists have been allowed in.
Mrs May’s remarks came ahead of her first major intervention in the referendum campaign. In her speech today, she will say that she is not going to ‘insult people’s intelligence by claiming that everything about the EU is perfect, that membership of the EU is wholly good’.
But she will tell an invited London audience that ‘right now, and looking ahead to the challenges facing Britain and Europe in the future – on security, trade and the economy – I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain members of the EU’.
Justice minister Dominic Raab said it was now accepted by all sides that ‘we can’t sensibly control the volume of immigration without leaving the EU’. He added: ‘With people coming from the EU we can only deny entry if there’s a serious, credible and present threat.’
He said this put the UK at extra and unnecessary risk.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, Mr Raab said that, if Britain quit the EU, it would look at whether visas might be needed to travel to and from the continent.
‘At the moment President Obama’s administration is looking at new visa requirements and screening from Germany, Belgium, Greece, France, because of the recent terrorist attacks,’ the minister added. ‘We should at least have the power and the control to do that and make sure we keep Britain safe.’
Pressed if this would mean British citizens would need visas to go to France or Germany, Mr Raab said: ‘Or some other kind of check.’
Former defence secretary Liam Fox said: ‘Over the last decade 1.2million EU migrants have settled in the UK. We had no control over this process and the British people know it – they should not be treated as fools.’ Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: ‘It’s not just difficult to control our borders within the EU, it’s impossible. We have an open door to 500million people across 27 other countries of the European Union.’
Lady Thatcher’s former economics adviser, Patrick Minford, yesterday accused the EU of imposing over-inflated prices on everything from food to cars – pushing up family bills by 20 per cent.
He said tearing down trade barriers after Brexit would boost growth and bring consumer prices down by 8p in the pound. The average family could be £40 a week better off if we left, he will say in a report to be published later this week.
Austria’s anti-immigration farRight triumphed in the first round of presidential elections last night.
Norbert Hofer, the gun-toting candidate of the Freedom Party won 35.3 per cent of the vote, projections showed, almost twice as many votes as his nearest rival.