Invasion Backlash Continues Putting Brussels on the Back Foot
Daily Mail
November 29, 2013
Brussels was facing open revolt over its no-borders immigration policy last night.
Hours after David Cameron outlined a crackdown on benefit tourism, France and Germany sensationally followed suit with similar plans.
The triple assault pushed Brussels onto the back foot and one of its commissioners was told to quit for claiming Britain risked becoming the ‘nasty country’ of Europe.
In Westminster, 46 Tory MPs kept up the pressure by signing a Commons motion calling for restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian workers to stay in place after January 1 because Britain was ‘full up’.
An agreement signed by Angela Merkel’s new coalition government in Berlin said ‘poverty migration’ from new EU countries was causing considerable social problems.
It declared: ‘We will therefore tackle unjustified benefit claims by EU citizens.’
Francois Hollande’s socialist government said the ‘social dumping’ of people from poor Eastern European states amounted to ‘a threat to the economic and social fabric of France’.
His ministers outlined plans to limit the rights of temporary workers from other countries.
Mr Cameron insisted he was sending a clear message that Britain was no soft touch but he was criticised for again refusing to predict how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to Britain when temporary controls are lifted on January 1.
There was also anger that some of the Prime Minister’s changes to benefit rights will not be in place in time.
Home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons about the series of steps to limit the right of EU migrants to claim UK benefits, which include:
- A bar on migrants claiming out-of-work benefits for the first three months;
- Welfare payments being stopped after six months unless the claimant has a genuine chance of a job;
- Migrant jobseekers not being able to claim housing benefit to subsidise accommodation costs;
- A 12-month bar on the return to the UK of any EU migrant found begging or sleeping rough;
- New £20,000 fines for employers who undercut British workers by paying migrants less than the minimum wage;
- A new salary threshold below which income support and other benefits which top up earnings will not be paid.
But some of the MPs who called for an extension of controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants urged Mr Cameron to do more – and risk EU fines.
Former minister Sir Gerald Howarth said the proposals were ‘incredibly robust’ but said even at this late stage ministers should ‘contemplate extending the transitional arrangements so that we have another two or three years to prepare’.
In angry exchanges in the Commons, Tory MP Charles Walker urged the Home Secretary to ‘find her inner lion or tiger and extend transitional controls until 2019’, adding: ‘She should take the hit and not pay the EU fine.’
Philip Hollobone, another Conservative, said: ‘My constituents take the view that this country is full, and that we should not open our borders to Romania and Bulgaria.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset, said: ‘The free movement of people is no longer working in the interests of this nation, so why do Her Majesty’s Government lack the political will to change the law?’