Yesterday I raised in the Commons the issue of the government figures for EU migrants. In recent years the government has issued many more National Insurance numbers to EU migrants than it has counted asĀ migrants in its official migration figures. Over the last five years to June 2015 1.2m more NI numbers were issued than identified inward migrants.
The government says this can be explained by the fact that many people come in for short term jobs and then go home again. A migrants is defined as someone who stays for more than one year. My point is the government needs more accurate figures than its passenger surveys to capture how many people need GPs, school places and other public services. The passenger survey clearly understates numbers by a large margin, and leaves us short of public service provision. The ONS report admitted short term stayers were not the only reason the two figures diverge so much, and have promised a further report, presumably after the Referendum. The government also needs to grasp that if someone comes, gets a job and an NI number and stays for most of the year they may well need a home,Ā school places for their children and a GP.
Asking a random selection of people at the ports why they have entered the UK leads to a large underestimate of how many people come to live here, and anĀ large underestimate of our needsĀ of public services. People may tell the official on arrival they intend to stay for a short time but change their minds once here. The officials may not sample correctly, as of course the migrants are a small proportion of all those entering at aĀ busy port.
I will post the Hansard report of the exchange this morning.
May 13, 2016
“… migrants is defined as someone who stays for more than one year.”
And a Scrounger has been described in our press historically as someone who works for say nine months until reaching his tax threshold where he is taxed, then ditches the job only to start another one three months later with a clean tax sheet. Even though he uses every penny of the wages to buy goods and services here in the UK.
May 13, 2016
What is astonishing is that this is not headline news. Minor articles at best. Major twisting false claims about immigration. 670,000 immigrants from the EU in one year covered up by the Govt. 800,000 in total in one year year! Repeated for several years!
It is inconceivable Cameron and Osborne did not know in contrast to their deliberate false promises. David Laws claims were correct after all they made no attempt to cut immigration. Both lying to the public about their intentions. ONS stated in 2010 that the UK needed more not less immigration for growth. Did they not try to find out why the growth was more than other countries when they repeatedly made claims? Mass cheap immigration is one answer.
Surveys are estimates, NI numbers accurate. Whether short or long term all use our public services as the short term numbers are constant. Look at Guido’s figures. Romanians and Eastern European benefit claimants soaring! Farage was rubbished and the idiot Vaz welcoming the first one in, (words left out ed) Vaz needs to apologise and resign. This needs exposing as it is a game changer and Cameron needs to be exposed for misleading and/or lying to the public. Teresa May must resign she has utterly failed in her job and has totally lost public confidence.
May 13, 2016
Cameron and co trying to claim the immigrants are temporary. How do they know they left? A survey? More over why should we beleive him! Major trying to silence people through veiled language that anyone discussing immigration might be predujiced! Utter idiot, 670,000 per year from the EU is not prejudice it is disgraceful when Cameron was telling us he could reduce to tens of thousands and that his last sham of negotiation would reduce it! Either he knew he was deceiving the public or he is utterly incompetent. How could he not know? Employment figures are always used as bate at PMQs. This vast number year on year would show a would the ethnicity statistics in every public sector questionnaire.
JR, you need another urgent question to ascertain whether there was a deliberate cover up either to help the economy by low wage imports or hide it so it would sway us to leave the EU. The answers provided are completely unacceptable and not credible. We are literally being invaded, more immigration in the last 15 years than the previous1500 years! Major is talking absolute rubbish and his treachery knows no bounds.
May 13, 2016
Congratulations JR on securing your Emergency Question yesterday. We watched it and also saw it reported on Sky News where they showed a clip of you. Not sure if the Beeb covered it or not.
Astonishing that after six months of asking, and the Government proscrastinating, the ONS still now say they need to study the matter further: “This is complex work and will take time to complete.” Kicking something into the long grass is one thing, but this is ridiculous.
Anyway, we reported on this yesterday: http://facts4eu.org/news.shtml .
Only 40 days to go until polls open…. Thank you again for your constant, daily hard work on behalf of the Leave cause.
May 13, 2016
Being in the position of living most of my time in E.London and having preferred to let my property to European tenants, while having contacts who speak E.European languages and report converstaions on the tube, I have a perhaps less simplistic idea of why the immigration figures are out by a factor of 2.3 and probably still more.
The NI cards are required for anyone to work officially, but they may start work while waiting for one. The ID checks are not reliable and facilitate multiple ID and benefit fraud. The dependents of the card holder are not counted and do not need cards. Workers for cash, criminals and those involved in prostitution will not need NI cards, even to be treated at NHS clinics.
As Ch4 news showed, in the unlikely event that EU entrants are sampled for an unchecked verbal survey in a cheap flight airport, few people coming will say they intend to stay for over a year. Most plan to take other cheap flights home frequently. Many may work for an airline and get free flights to see the family. But they all work and stay here, using housing, transport, NHS, sometimes schools and most will acccept in work benefits such as HB, tax credits and Child Benefit. The number of GP registrations is around 4m higher. Either this means that we are paying GPs for non existent patients or the number of immigrants is far higher, or both.
David Laws told us in his recent book that the last thing the Home Office wanted was a proper US style count in and out. This would expose their incredible incompetence or dishonesty. The government manipulation of news yesterday was a lesson in obfiscation. The BBCs governance announcement was delayed and Mr Carney timed his guesses to please his generous employer. Todays news ignores the figures in favour of girls and boys who feel they should be the opposite gender and whch toilet they should go to, celebrities, how to save refugees from drowning, in fact anything but the grossly fiddled figures for users of services and contibutors to GDP, the figures for which will also have to be revised down when divided per head. No wonder Osborne and the BoE economists are so keen to stay in.
May 13, 2016
Uncontrolled immigration doesn’t work, how does the Government plan for the extra resources needed by the hallowed NHS, Schools, local services etc.
It’s inevitable that migrants will come to countries that offer jobs and higher wages than they get elsewhere. The only way that this can be sorted is for all the “richer” countries to give away their “excess” wealth until all countries all equal. Just make sure you take the National Debt in to account (Ā£2 Trillion and counting?) when you do the maths.
CMD said that benefits was the “draw” and what does Gideon do…put a living wage in place that certainly is a huge draw.
Oh, and it appears that stationing Navy “ferries” in the Med hasn’t decreased the transit of migrants willing to risk that crossing, what a surprise.
Is that what “we” want?
May 13, 2016
@Know-dice
Did anyone in their right mind ever think it would?
The decision to commit RN vessels to the med has just encouraged the people traffickers.
May 13, 2016
How is the govt going to curtail immigration if the UK remains in the EU when Cameron has given a bigger incentive for peopl to come by e minimum wage and over generous welfare and housing to all? This 600,000 each year will continue while the Eurozone remains a basket case and Eatern Europe remains poor. The Russians must be laughing at the stupidity of the EU project at the expense of the U.K. T is reported we had more immigrTion in the last 15 years than the previous 1500. Blair needs to be brought to account for his deliberate mass immigration policy and continued by his heir.
May 13, 2016
In my opinion, the situation is out of control and no Government seems to know what to do about it. They attempt to ‘explain’ it somehow or other.
It appears from the BBC website this morning, that the attempt to tackle the problem of people smugglers is failing. I guess no one is surprised by that. Turkey doesnt seem to be helping much either. 800 migrants were rescued yesterday. I cant see this nightmare ending any time soon.
May 13, 2016
It seems quite clear that there is no desire by government to do anything about this. If there were then action would have been taken.
May 13, 2016
It is Common Purpose backed wilful neglect. Pure and simple.
May 13, 2016
Brian, You are right. There is constant mock concern from this government, and frequent promises to sort it out, but as far as I can see, no real action at all. They just hope they can fudge the whole business, and if Remain wins, they can forget about it. They’ll just shrug and turn away.
May 13, 2016
The MSM news put the grossly different NI immigration figures way down the list yesterday, behind Mr( ex- Goldman Sachs) Carney’s guesses, high heels, and pictures of lucky rescued ‘refugees’ being ferried from 12miles off Libya to Sicily and theron north. But virtually all were shown to be from W.Africa. The honest president of Nigeria suggested that they should not be given refugee status. After all if Boko was bothering them, they could go to a safe area of Nigeria, Ghana or other nearby safe country. They are economic migrants who know the rules of the EU will guarantee they stay and have a better income.
Right next to Libya is Tunisia, a safe friendly country with a terrorist problem which has messed up its tourism reciepts. Its government is probably more straightforward than Mr Erdogan’s. So why don’t the EU rescue ferries take them to the nearest Tunisian port and get the Tunisians to process them and send them back to the last country of refuge, or around the coast back to their original country.
Once this was known, would they continue to pay the trafficers and risk drowning? The cost of paying Tunisia would be less than the E250k per settled ‘refugee’ threatened by the Commission if subservient countries refuse to house them.Perhaps Mr Cameron could have a word with some of his buddies in Bruxelles.
May 13, 2016
The internet tells you how to get a a NI number, automatically assuming you are a foreigner, and that you don’t need one to work so long as you can prove you are eligible to work here ( eg EU citizen ) so long as you tell your employer you have applied for a number.
I wonder how many months a person can work before their employer says “You give me the number now or you’re sacked ?” With over 600,000 permanent and temporary migrants per annum I bet it is quite a long time.
How many job swaps can a person do without needing to actually produce a number? Must be infinite.
How does an official name-change either here or in an EU country affect a NI number? With a different name on an EU passport or ID or Driving licence it may well be a different NI could be generated with a bit of creative form filling and a very busy NI Office.
The fact is the government with or without NI numbers does not control our borders at all. Cannot know who is working here legally or illegally or if or where.
Pathetic for a so-called advanced country. The Security implications are severe. The Home Secretary is quite in order not doing as much doorstep election campaigning as previously. We all understand. You just don’t know who is going to open that door do you?
etc ed
May 13, 2016
More news about Major claiming divisions in society after Cameron’s scaremongering remarks!Osborne and Legard will provide further scare stories to distract attention away from this catastrophie.
May 13, 2016
This is the Home Secretary who gave us her anti-immigration tosh at the party conference, but now is for remain, but wants out of the ECHR and say we still control our borders. She seem to be more concerned over her choice of shoes than the logic of her policies.
Talking about high heals I see people are questioning if employers should be able to insist on woman wearing high heals at work. Personaly I cannot stand high heals even on women, it makes women walk even more slowly than some do already and can often make them look rather absurd. It cannot be good for productivity or health and safety in most areas of business. Then again it seems that in this case she was an actress and so should be rather used to dressing up for a living.
May 13, 2016
Like so many aspects of public administration in this country the issue of NI numbers seems sloppy to say the least. Why not issue temporary numbers initially with an expiry date of say a year – this should weed out all those supposed temporary migrants the government claims accoumt for all the extra migrant numbers. The Home Office has only just woken up to the fact that many illegals are entering the country through small coastal ports and stirring themselves to try and stop it. There is a complete lack of official will in fact to do anything much more than shop window efforts to curtail numbers of legal or illegal migrants or to deal with the consequenses for public services..
Even now most radio and TV media, when discussing shortage of school places, housing or doctors, can never bring themselves to mention migration as the major cause.
May 13, 2016
On the face of it that would make sense. On their first arrival somebody says that they intend to stay here for less than year, so they can only get a temporary NI number which will automatically expire, or at least be suspended, after a year. But then I find that until 2001 employers could issue temporary NI numbers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance_number#Temporary_numbers
May 13, 2016
Our own pensioners every winter either “heat or eat”. yet foreigners can walk in and are “entitled” to what we have paid taxes for all our lives. They don’t have to contribute. We are being made to pay for anyone who turns up. Try running a business like that. We will be deliberately overrun by numbers in a couple of decades when the EU forces the Schengen wall down. We are paying for people who have contributed nothing, to have a better life here, for having arrived. . . . . . . .Cameron has no shame.
Could the govt provide figures for
How many “East European” travellers arrived?
How many houses they have took?
How many actually have full time – or ANY – jobs?
How much have they cost in benefits?
How much have they cost the NHS?
How much have they cost us in crime?
and – how much have they paid in taxes?
Let the govt tell us how “beneficial” this group have been.
May 13, 2016
This is the Home Secretary who gave us her anti-immigration tosh at the party conference, but now is for remain, but wants out of the ECHR and say we still control our borders. She seem to be more concerned over her choice of shoes than the logic of her policies.
Talking about high heals I see people are questioning if employers should be able to insist on woman wearing high heals at work. Personaly I cannot stand high heals even on women, it makes women walk even more slowly than some do already and can often make them look rather absurd. It cannot be good for productivity or health and safety in most areas of business. Then again it seems that in this case she was an actress and so should be rather used to dressing up for a living.the
May 13, 2016
To compound the issue the refusal to properly inform everyone that we can’t do a damn thing about it whilst we remain in the EU is a blatant treasonable act.
May 13, 2016
And to follow the theme and JJE below: How many EHIC cards were issued to these NI Numbers? I was also under the impression that to actually be a positive contributor in the UK you had to earn upwards of Ā£40 thousand. How can pro politicians and economists keep announcing that the EU migrants are net contributors, I find it hard to believe.
May 13, 2016
Figures for 2014:
1% earn more than Ā£150,000 and contribute 29.7% of HMRC revenues.
14.7% earn more Ā£32,010 for 36.8%.
81.6% are under the basic rate and contribute 33.2%.
2% are under the “saver rate” (i.e., no income) for 0.4%.
0.7% are within the “lowest rate???” for 0.02%.
How do you define a “positive contributor”?
May 13, 2016
You’ll notice that no detailed figures are EVER produced to support this unbelievable myth. And no-one ever even estimates the amount that is earned here by migrants (or given as benefits) and is then shipped abroad rather than being spent here.
May 14, 2016
It’s more likely that they could be if they came as single fit young workers and neither aged nor ailed to become more of a burden on the state, and never had any children needing healthcare and education funded by the state.
May 13, 2016
The government doesn’t know how many people are in the country, let alone who they are or what they are doing. Why don’t they? It can’t be that difficult given that all passports are scanned on entry. Perhaps the problem is that they don’t want to know. The question then is, why don’t they want to know?
May 13, 2016
There was a report pushed out yesterday saying that EU migrants paid more in tax than they received in benefits and so everything was just fine. This was on a very narrow definition of benefits as cash received. Benefits actually should include an estimate of non-cash benefits such as schooling, NHS etc. Just as an aside I read there is a primary school in Glasgow with no Scottish pupils at all, they are all Romanian and Polish – providing schools like that is a cost not covered by on-going annual taxation.
May 13, 2016
To continue that theme; the figures given were Ā£2.5 billion paid in taxes v Ā£550 million benefits claimed. How much of the Ā£2.5 billion tax was collected from Premier league footballers, bankers and other high net worth individuals who would be here anyway with work visas? How much was contributed by waitresses and cleaners? I suspect that when we strip out those who would be here without free movement the figures are closer to 1:1 tax v benefits or even more benefits paid than taxes collected.
No one has said immigration per se is bad just that unfettered open borders is unsustainable.
As well as the costs to schools (at least Ā£5K per pupil per year plus capital costs of building new schools), health and public services, the indigenous population incur higher costs of living because of increased demand for everything.
Open borders only benefits business, government and other countries.
May 13, 2016
Thank you for your hard work, JR. We simply must win this referendum. The control of our borders for all potential migrants, not just those from the EU, is imperative.
May 13, 2016
I have heard that some migrants have multiple NI numbers and identities. Each NI number gets a fresh tax allowance and entitlement to benefits. So if they have more than one job, each is taken under a different name and NI number. And presumably in years to come they will have multiple pensions.
May 13, 2016
To be fair that scenario does not just apply to immigrants. Any system that can be cheated will be cheated
May 13, 2016
John,
You should be congratulated on succeeding to put forward an urgent question.
Was the release of the data always scheduled for yesterday? It was unfortunate that it came out the same day as the news about the BBC. The immigration numbers story was relegated to a side piece as the BBC cried and congratulated itself like a 24 hour Oscar winner’s speech. Today the story is no longer on the BBC front page at all.
“Successfully burried Prime Minister”
“Excellent work Sir Humphrey.”
May 13, 2016
The government is not going to he honest about the numbers. The passenger survey is clearly going to under estimate the numbers. I assume that is why they chose to do it that way. Firstly people do not know how long they are going to stay when they first come and secondly they are more likely to say a short time until they see what the UK is like. They might well not want to admit they are coming permanently even if that is their intention. They might like to think they are going back home but just find that economics and inertia keep them in the UK.
What is very clear is that low paid migrants are a large net liability to the state, They pay in far less than they are likely to take in in work benefits, schools, health and all the other public services. They need housing, roads, policing, they depress wages and tend to send money out of the country. What is also clear is that Osborne’s economically illiterate wage controls will encourage far more to come.
Carney has stepped well over the “impartial” line on Brexit and clearly should be sacked. His past prediction have proved to be nonsense anyway. At least he is not taking his green drivel too this time I suppose.
The encouraging thing is that the absurd bias of the BBC and the massive project fear from the Government, the State and the usual dreadful people like John Major is not working. If anything Brexit is getting a little stronger. The people can see the remain has no valid arguments.
May 13, 2016
Who on earth is the unpleasant, lefty presenting Newsnight last night? He makes all the other lefty, green loon, chip on the shoulder presenters look relatively good. I was never that keen on lefty Paxman, but please bring him or someone like him back at least he could thing ocasionally. Why does everyone on the BBC have to have the same idiotic Guardian think views on every issue?
May 13, 2016
It’s no coincidence that the NHS just had by far its busiest year ever is it?
May 13, 2016
Record waiting times at causality last month announced yesterday. Plus they fiddle these too, by false recording, I understand.
Still do not worry is is Cameron’s priority in three letters, but not alas in any real terms.
May 13, 2016
Only a fool or knave would believe anything coming out of government. We are being lied to daily and the nation knows.
It is heartening that the polls for leave grow inversely proportionally to the lies coming out of Westminster and its allies.
Immigration is going to destroy the Liblabcon and it can’t happen soon enough.
May 13, 2016
In an odd way, one good thing has come out of these shenanigans, and that is that there is almost total cynicism about government figures and promises. It’s difficult to fool a people who no longer believe what you say.
May 13, 2016
It appears the flood gates have been opened and unprecedented numbers of immigrants are rip tiding into Europe. Exacerbating an immigrant problem that Europe was already experiencing. As some earlier ones had not been integrated into society and become ghettoised. A new under class has grown up that yearns for better and feels hard done by. Most of the new immigrants are the same as the ones already here who feel marginalised and wish to see the host countries become more culturally like the ones they left.
We are seeing a clash of civilisations and at the same time an increase in demand on resources. It is unsustainable. We were finding it difficult to cope with even fewer numbers arriving than there are now. The demand was to reduce numbers because resources and cultural differences made it imperative that we did.
What this new wave of immigrants is going to do our societies is difficult to predict but one thing is certain many people are going to lose out. Those losers will not take it kindly so eventually there are going to be conflicts. All that can be hoped for is that those conflicts can be easily resolved but I cannot see how.
May 13, 2016
Can’t government get Tesco or Sainsbury’s to show them how their loyalty card schemes work and perhaps use the same systems to scan in everyone’s passport numbers? Count them in and count them out. It is ridiculous that WH Smiths probably has a better idea who passes through passenger terminals than HMG.
Why do we need …………… ‘Big Issue’ sellers, it’s hardly work of strategic importance?
May 13, 2016
It would appear that the only form of accounting of immigrants into the UK and migrants out is a poll. Do we need reminding of how inaccurate they can be. It would seem to me that the system of accounting is run by D stream inadequates.
My personal aim for the UK would be a population of around 40 million with a return to a quality of life we have not enjoyed for many decades. Having just experienced a population of 60 plus million for the past two weeks I conclude that it is destroying the UK as I once knew it. I will not dwell on how I would achieve it because your tendency to political correctness would not moderate it. All I can say is that it would take as long to reverse population growth as it has taken to achieve it, and it would involve the reversal of all legislation that has encouraged it’s growth.
As a starting point on brexit, the Australian points system would be where I would begin.
May 13, 2016
When a migrant is issued with an NI number do they keep it if they later leave the country?
May 13, 2016
We don’t have control over our borders and that’s the long and short of it . Schengen is no protection , employment laws are no protection , whatever we have tried to achieve via the ECHR makes us look ridiculous . The pictures of the “campers” in Central London send signals that our country cannot do anything to regulate in any meaningful manner .
Being slaves to the EU has led us into turmoil and confusion ; migration – and the knock on effects of its uncontrol , has wreaked havoc into our schools , hospitals and transportation systems ; we cannot possibly go on this way . “Eating at the EU table” (as Juncker puts it ) has got us no where ; our presence there has never had any influence and isnt likely to do so in the future .
Far right movements are now making greater noises all over Europe – dissent is rife in Austria and in most other EU countries where migrants have been allowed in . No matter how one looks at this problem there is no apparent solution unless we take the law into our own hands again and adopt a completely ruthless attitude to control .
May 13, 2016
Even if they stay for less than a year they still need somewhere to live, will still draw on public services and are most unlikely to generate the tax revenues needed to pay for all of this. What the government apologists fail to mention is the capital investments required to cater for the upsurge in net migration (is it now 5 million over the past ten years with at least an another 3 million to come?). This must run to many billions of Ā£s.
What we are witnessing on this issue and the wider referendum campaign is a government exercise in mushroom management. For those unfamiliar with the term it is short hand for “Keep them in the dark and cover them with manure”. In the referendum campaign the dark is the cover up of the political nature and direction of the EU (as set out in the Five President’s Report and its effect on the UK if it remains a member). The manure is the constant reference to the supposed bad economic consequences of a decision to Vote Leave.
Thus Mr Cameron constantly bangs on about Project Fear – invoking “experts” to set out the economic consequences that “could” occur. To my knowledge he has not even uttered the words “Five President’s Report”. He has not been challenged to explain the political implications and consequences this will have when the UK is outvoted under QMV rules, how this will not mean more taxes being imposed on the UK, or how he would prevent hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers being allocated to the UK (in the interests of “fairness” and “solidarity”) by the German Chancellor – just as she has insisted in freedom of movement for EU citizens in his failed attempt to rengotiate a new relationship for the UK with the EU.
Perhaps the forthcoming TV debates will provide the opportunity for Mr Cameron to be put on the spot on these matters. And perhaps he will challenged to explain why he proposes to surrender the last shreds of UK democracy for the dictatorship of the EU bureaucrats. For that is what we will be getting with no means of redress.
Reply I have been working on the issue of cap ex for new arrivals and will post on this, probably on Tuesday.
May 13, 2016
So they are not actually counting people in and out.
How do they keep check on people at Victoria coach station, large numbers of people travel to and from Europe by bus. (and still a large number on the back of lorries).
Last night I watched the one sided debate on the Government dodgy pamphlet, having previously read the transcript.
When it comes to the claims for the reformed European Union you have been over generous in accepting the emergency benefits brake and the useless red card.
Both of these measures have yet to be submitted to the European Parliament, and only if we remain in the EU. Passage through the Parliament is looking highly unlikely.
The BBC and the media fail to report on events in the EU that could influence the Public’s desire to leave.
Martin Schulz ( http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/1911/MARTIN_SCHULZ_home.html ) said at the time he could not guarantee its acceptance. Then along came Graf Lambsdorff, a Vice-President of the European Parliament and an MEP with the liberal ALDE group who said he would vote against it and was sure many in his group, as well as his colleagues in the EPP and S&D group would do the same.
Even Jean-Claude Juncker, the current European Commission president, admitted that āone of the reasons that European citizens are stepping away from the European project is that we are interfering in too many domains of their private lives. And too many domains where the member states are better placed to take action and pass legislation.ā But there is little chance of him doing much to fix the problem.
Look in EurActiv.com dated 19th April, it is a really good source of information which the BBC and the MSM never seem to quote, they prefer to live in blissful ignorance of what is going in the EU ā musnāt let the Public know Cameron is a liar.
Record 60% of Europeans ātend not to trustā EU. The number of Europeans who distrust the European Union has doubled over the past six years to a record high, with bailed-out Greeks and Cypriots having the least faith in the bloc, according to a new Eurobarometer poll.
The former Luxembourg premier said, āToday we are facing very tough times. We have the global refugee crisis, we have attacks on our free societies, all of our institutions are under immense pressure today and sometimes are really pushed to their limits.ā
For me this is far more foretelling of our future in the EU than Mark Carney ā āThe risks were emanating from the UKās very high current account deficitā. He and Chancellor with their phoney forecasts for 2030 on GDP etc are meaningless scaremongering.
Cameronās public debrief on the BBC with Andrew Marr
AM: Isnāt the big truth about this that the old EU with its treaties, the Lisbon treaty and the Nice treaty and all the rest of them, overhanging our laws, and its over-centralised massive, blundering machine, imperial in its ambitions, carries on, and because we are still under those treaties we carry on under it?
DC: Well the difference is that of course now weāre not only out of the euro, out of the no borders agreement, but weāre also out of ever-closer union, so we wonāt be part ā yes.
That was no real answer
May 13, 2016
Guido reports 150 million being given to bremain organisations (bbc, charities, unions etc)
May 13, 2016
If there is one guy we should have put in charge of Immigration at all ports, it is the late Brian Hanrahan. He had the foolproof method: “I counted them all out and I counted them all back.” It appears nobody thought of doing that!!!???
PS. Culture Secretary Whittingdale, finally got the fact that the BBC is much more popular with the voters than himself and/or the Conservative Party. But he has managed to take the BBC out of the referendum biased coverage argument, in one fell swoop.
A cynic might even think he planned his much diluted proposals, to fit the Remainers’ referendum time-table š
May 13, 2016
Well, JR, do you feel that you risk “morphing into UKIP”?
š
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/12/sir-john-major-leave-campaigners-are-morphing-into-ukip/
There are some people who are virulently, in fact violently, opposed to UKIP. Some of them are themselves vile people, far worse than the odd fairly harmless eccentric in the ranks of UKIP. Many others sympathise with UKIP but don’t vote for its candidates for a variety of reasons, maybe they have a firm attachment to some other party or maybe they fear ending up with the SNP pulling the strings of Labour in government, whatever. But “morphing into UKIP” would not be the terrible fate that Major implies.
He has the nerve to write:
“I urge them to take care: this is dangerous territory that ā if handled carelessly ā can open up long-term divisions in our society.”
When he was Prime Minister he wanted the eastern European countries in the EU as soon as possible, indeed the Tory manifesto for the 1992 general election:
http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1992/1992-conservative-manifesto.shtml
said that a priority would be:
“To build on the EC’s Association Agreements with Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland so that we can welcome them to full membership by the year 2000.”
How careless was that, to advocate rushing Poland into EU membership so that 38 million citizens of what he knew very well was a poor country would all have the automatic right to come and live and work here, without any word of caution that there would have to be very long term transitional controls to avoid mass migration?
Just as careless, perhaps, as the Labour government later agreeing to allow Poland into the EU with transitional limitations on freedom of movement which could last for a maximum of just seven years, and then deciding not to apply even those inadequate controls.
Those like Major who created this situation, this “dangerous territory”, are the ones who at the very least should be condemned for handling it “carelessly”, and at worst stand accused of a deliberate, gross, betrayal of the British people in this as in other matters.
May 13, 2016
Nearly off topic š
Christine Lagarde
Bank of England governor Mark Carney
It is the JOB of these “experts” and the Government to come up with a postBrexit plan NOW to stop the uncertainly that THEY are causing…
Any failure of the economy post Brexit will be solely down to the incompetence of the Government and Civil Servants that handle negotiating our withdrawal…
May 13, 2016
Oh yes? Isn’t there a tiny bit of uncertainty also brought about by the Leavers (any of them), it seems, absolutely unable to tell us what will happen after 23/06.
How comes they have not produced a proper detailed timetable of how they will actually handle the transition. I am sorry but I do not buy all the ecstatic compliments sent to JR by various contributors on this site: he can certainly criticise the Remaineers with pretty incisive comments. I would love a bit more precision on what and how Brexit will mean. And before some of you start, no need to talk about sovereignty:
– will the status of the BoE be changed?
– Which ministers will be replaced, and by whom?
– if no Norwegian/Swiss/Albanian, … model is to be followed, which type of agreement will the UK look for to establish? economically, militarily, socially, … speaking.
We clearly have Project Fear by the Remaineers, but also Project Fuzzy Blabla by the Leavers.
Reply NO, there are no Brexit plans to change the status of the Bank of England. The PM in office will decide which Ministers are appointed, as always. There will need to be a reshuffle of the government to reflect the Referendum result. There will be a UK model for trade based on what we have at the moment, as the rest of the EU is not united in wanting to impose any new barriers in the way of selling us things.
Can you forecast who will be in the government if Remain wins? Can you tell us what the new Treaty of Political Union they plan will look like? Can you tell us who will pay the bills to write off Greek debts? etc
May 14, 2016
Obviously not, I can’t, but I am not a politician nor have been an MP for 29 years.
And I would expect a bit more detailed information from you and other Leavers.
May 13, 2016
Having heard from a previous Prime Minister on the risk of “morphing into UKIP” if you dare to talk about EU immigration let’s just recall what the present Prime Minister said in December 2013, which was before he chickened out and decided to focus attention on just the secondary issue of benefits – and in doing so, quite disgracefully spreading unwarranted slurs as far as almost all of the EU immigrants are concerned, in my view – but notably after he had already allowed an additional country, Croatia, to join the EU without demanding any strengthening of the system of transitional controls:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10532152/Ill-veto-new-EU-states-unless-we-deal-with-mass-migration-pledges-David-Cameron.html
“David Cameron will veto any countries from joining the European Union unless long term and tighter restrictions are imposed on them to prevent another āvast migrationā of people from Eastern Europe into Britain.
The Prime Minister made his pledge … as Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Albania line up to begin negotiations to join the EU.”
“Mr Cameron said EU members had to ālook very carefullyā at the ātransitional controlsā it puts in place for countries joining the union, as he did not āwant to see ā¦ what has happened in the past, with these vast movements of peopleā.
If new membership is offered to any of the potential entrants, which are all much poorer countries than the western European average, Britain would insist upon lengthy restrictions that go beyond the seven-year controls on free movement.”
And then in November 2014:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30250299
“In some areas, the number of migrants we are seeing is far higher than our local authorities, our schools and our hospitals can cope with.
They are much higher than anything the EU has known before in its history.
And they are far higher than what the founding fathers envisaged when the European Economic Community was established in 1957 or what Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl envisaged when they signed the Single European Act in 1986.
One million people coming to one Member State is a vast migration, on a scale that has not happened before in peacetime.”
So Cameron publicly agrees with UKIP that allowing much poorer countries into the EU has caused major problems with a “vast migration”, and he has even publicly proposed a solution, that there should be longer transitional controls on freedom of movement until a much greater degree of economic convergence has been achieved, but he only made these public pronouncements after he had already declined to make use of an opportunity to insist that other EU member state governments must agree to the changes.
Oh, and if we the British people had been granted a referendum on whether Croatia should be allowed to join the EU then it’s quite possible that our permission would have been refused unless the accession treaty had introduced much stronger transitional controls on freedom of movement, but of course we had no referendum because Hague had carefully written a blanket exemption for all accession treaties into his so-called “referendum lock” law, Section 4(4)(c) of the European Union Act 2011:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/12/section/4
May 13, 2016
If I hadn’t come to mistrust anything said by any organ of the British state, even those which are routinely described as “independent”, then I would accept the ONS explanation for this discrepancy. If you need an NI number to undertake any paid work, even for a day, then it’s quite possible that a lot of the issued NI numbers are held by people who came here for a bit but are no longer in the country. I don’t know what the official system is if somebody is given a number so they can work here but then leaves the country, perhaps never to return. One would think that NI would want to be notified of any change of address and then could very easily say how many holders of their numbers have told them that they were no longer resident in this country, but I don’t suppose for one moment that it would work like that even if NI tried to make it work like that.
May 13, 2016
More comfortable for the illiberal Left to speak in terms of People, not Migrants.
Migrants from the Labour perspective are persons who remarkably in the course of human experience somehow lack all human shortcomings,- are more virtuous than many of their British counterparts, despite their long-standing poverty, lack of opportunity, inferior social conditions; hence, when they arrive in our country they are lawful, not scrounging on benefits like we British, working hard not like we British, not using up social housing like we British, do not make use of the healthcare system like we British. Thoroughly good eggs. A wonderment their native countries are not more prosperous with such goodly hardworking and skilful folk and not the absolute and total reverse.
So, how many PEOPLE including we inferior, workshy, poorly, criminally minded, racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic British are actually present on our islands at any one time?
The Government does not know. Obviously the British along with all their other intrinsic shortcomings cannot count. Actually, it is a case of do not wish to count.
May 14, 2016
In order to get here these immigrant people will have broken many laws “through necessity”. Why do we believe that they will not continue to break laws when necessity arises, at what point does breaking rules and laws become criminal or is punishment only for the law abiding and easily dealt with?
May 13, 2016
We see a visual escalation in migration-border questions: A shooting.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/09/syrian-refugee-shot-by-slovakian-border-guards/
The four EU nations of the Visegrad Group have been swapping one another’s policemen and soldiers…. protecting vulnerable borders despite EU directives, EU laws and EU threats of debilitating fines.
They do right of course.
But the UK Remaindears still don’t get it. Small countries in Europe are brave enough to do what is proper. Remaindears are an embarrassment to our history and culture.
Reply Most of us want the EU to have a sane borders and migration policy fairly enforced (with the UK outside the EU with our own policy). We do not want to see refugees shot and injured in the way of this report.
May 14, 2016
We do not want to see refugees shot and injured in the way of this report.
True we do not but Mr Redwood, how do we sanction those who would break our laws and prevent them from doing things the way they want to?
This is a law abiding continent for the most part, we would like it to stay that way.
These people are by any definition criminals (they have broken multiple laws to get here). Do we want to encourage those with no regard for rules to come? How will these criminals integrate into our society when circumstances do not go their way?
May 13, 2016
It was an o tete sting statistic reported by the NHS that they treated a record 23 million people last year.
They said it was up by 500,000 compared to last year.
May 13, 2016
Much more problems for the Remain Camp. Their EU negotiation with Canada. Not on.
An article written today
http://www.euractiv.com/section/trade-society/news/eu-canada-summit-hangs-in-doubt-ceta-fate-uncertain/
May 13, 2016
Thank you JR for asking the questions to which the answers (when finally obtained) are an inconvenient truth. What every one seems to forget is that the politicians are ignoring what their employers (us) want, doing the opposite and insisting with the full might of the state and law that we pay for it.
Yesterday I raised a query on the leaflet debate that was not published so I will ask it again.
You stated that the govt “lost the vote”. What does this mean in democratic terms? Since it appears to have been buried by the media, should there be a public petition that the responsible politicians be surcharged to recover the cost to the tax payer of the leaflet?
Reply The debate was in Westminster Hall on a motion to say we had considered the matter of the referendum leaflet. Losing the vote technically means the government has to find time for another debate on the topic, but I doubt they will before Referendum Day. If we could get all the Opposition MPs with us we could force another debate, but they of course largely support the government so we are stuck.
May 13, 2016
In 1970 any British citizen could emigrate to New Zealand. Then came the shambles of the three day week and so many people wanted to go to NZ that you had to have a job offer to emigrate. But still many people managed to go, so the NZ government was forced to say that only jobs which could not be done by New Zealanders would qualify for immigration.
The ruling worked and no one complained. A lesson here?