Just 134 days before a general election, Mr
Miliband and Mr Cameron are convening speeches, dossiers, and chucking around
fanciful and in most cases unworkable “solutions” to what they now seem to regard as one of the most important issues
before we go to the polls on May 7th.
Of course, the matter was not just totally ignored by the
party that Ed Miliband served in government from 2006 to 2010 – in fact it was
that very party that opened the doors to mass migration from europe, only to
wait until after they lost in 2010 to admit they made a spectacular “mistake” on
the issue.
The Conservatives, on the same side of the argument, voted
in favour of the accession to the european Union of a number of member states
who now also enjoy the freedom of movement to Britain.
Effectively, trusting either of these parties on
immigration is the same thing as trusting the Tories with the nHS, and trusting
Labour with the economy. In other words: you must be barking mad to believe a
word of it.
Labour will try and pretend, between now and May, that
their 2004 decision was simply an “experiment” and that they have learned
something along the way. But their “experiment” with our livelihoods has cost
Britain and the British people so much – how could it not?
And they’re still campaigning, as Mr Cameron is, for our
continued membership and indeed for the expansion of the european Union. So what
has it cost?
In 2000, the population of the United Kingdom was 58
million. In 2013 it was 64 million.
That’s six million more people to cater for in just 13
years – and that’s discounting the illegal immigrants that the Home Office now
admits to not knowing much about.
Six million more people needing housing, six
million more people potentially using trains, roads, the London Underground, the
National Health
Service, that potentially need
benefits – and, yes, potentially six million more people contributing to the
British economy. But that’s where things get hazy – and where you’re often sold
information that isn’t quite true.
Just like Labour’s “experiment” line – statistics that
emerge about open door immigration are often smoke and mirrors, perhaps funded
by the European Union itself, as a recent University College London report was.
Or perhaps mis-sold to you by political parties who have yet to grasp the nettle
in terms of what the British public wants back: control.
But the control actually lies well outside Britain’s
purview – which is why for all the speeches the other parties give, for all the
reluctant noises they make, you can’t trust a word they say.
The European Union wields the power, and our partners
across europe know it.
That’s why it is so easy, as the Polish, Germans, French
and eUrocrats have done in a matter of weeks, to claim they’ll veto one or
another of Mr Cameron’s fag-packet plans.
The Prime Minister wrote this weekend in the
express, claiming that he “wants to reduce” the number of eU workers coming into
the UK. He wants to introduce a new residency requirement for social housing.
He wants to limit child benefit going abroad. He wants to
stop jobseekers allowance for eU migrants.
He wants to restrict the time jobseekers can stay in the
country, and he wants “stronger powers to tackle abuse”.
Well, Mr Cameron, these things are all rather well and good
– and after almost five years in government it is interesting that you’ve just
woken up to these issues, coincidentally just after losing two by-elections to
UKIP and a few months before a general election. But you know as well as I do
that none of these things are in your gift.
You’ve already been vetoed by your european allies on such
matters, and you’d be further slapped down – as Britain always is – by the
european courts if you even tried. But that’s the tactic, isn’t
it?
Reluctantly promise things that neither you nor the other
side of your coin Mr Miliband agree with, and kick them into the long grass
until after the election.
You know, as well as I do, Prime Minister, that the
challenges would be filed in the european courts, and could therefore take years
to come to a head. In the meantime, nothing, at all, would
change.
So I say to the people of Britain – if you want a truly
fair immigration system, that benefits the British people, that doesn’t inundate
our public services, that doesn’t strain the national Health Service, and that
doesn’t discriminate against the Commonwealth, and in favour of the former
Communist countries of the european Union – then you only need to tick one box
on May 7th 2015: the box marked UKIP.
