BRITAIN should shut the door to more migrants to protect jobs for native workers, a Labour adviser said yesterday. Lord Glasman, Ed Miliband’s chief policy guru, wants a temporary halt to immigration to ensure British people are first in the queue for jobs. The Labour peer also urged the Government to renegotiate EU rules allowing the free movement of migrant workers in a decisive break with the open door policy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “The people who live here are the highest priority. We’ve got to listen and be with them. They’re in the right place – it’s us who are not,” he said. His remarks follow a report he has written for the Labour leader and sparked fresh anger last night over the relaxation of border controls by the last Labour government that allowed more than five million immigrants to settle in Britain. Mr Miliband yesterday tried to distance himself from the remarks by claiming he had not read them. Lord Glasman spoke out on immigration in an interview for Fabian Review, the journal of the Left-wing Fabian Society think-tank. Lord Glasman “We’ve got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour,” he said. “It’s legalistic, it’s administrative and it’s no good. So I think we have got to renegotiate with the EU. “Britain is not an outpost of the UN [United Nations]. We have to put the people in this country first.” The peer believes that the previous Labour government’s backing for mass immigration from Eastern Europe helped undermine support among traditional Labour voters. Last month the Daily Express reported that nine out of 10 new jobs created in Britain go to migrants. Lord Glasman had been asked by Ed Miliband to study how Labour can reconnect with millions of working class and middle-class voters who have turned their backs on the party, particularly in areas that were once the Labour heartlands. Under the title “Blue Labour”, his report looked at how to re-establish the party’s standing among socially conservative voters uncomfortable at the rapid change to their communities caused by huge influxes of immigrants in some areas. But the peer’s remarks were last night seen as embarrassing for the Labour leader. Mr Miliband has admitted Labour made mistakes on immigration while in office but has opposed the coalition’s Government’s drive to limit the number of arrivals each year and does not support overhaul of EU freedom-of-movement rules. Yesterday he claimed not to have read Lord Glasman’s comments and said: “I think that one of the virtues of being in the House of Lords is that you can speak independently on any issues of the day. “I haven’t seen those comments by Maurice Glasman, I’ll obviously have a look at them. But I’ve said in the past that we underestimated the impact of Polish migration to Britain. “I think it is quite hard to renegotiate the terms of free movement of labour. “I think the right solution is to provide a strong immigration policy but also provide people with the guarantees they need in relation to wages and conditions, which is one of the biggest worries that people have about some of the migration issues.” Critics of mass immigration yesterday seized on the peer’s remarks as evidence that Labour was beginning to acknowledge the huge damage they caused by allowing more than 200,000 migrants a year into the UK. The Daily Express was the first newspaper to highlight the potential dangers of allowing unrestricted migration. And yesterday Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “I don’t believe that freedom of movement across the countries of the EU is a good idea. ‘I certainly feel we should break the link between people working here and the right to settle here. “If the Labour Party is beginning to wake up to this, I think the Conservative Party should as well.” UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: “He, like we, believes that there should always be the opportunity to invite people of drive and talent but to shut the gates to mass migration.”UK NEWS
BRITAIN MUST BAN MIGRANTS
Also On Express.co.uk
Friday 22 July 2011
Tuesday July 19 2011 by Macer Hall, Political Editor
Britain is not an outpost of the UN [United Nations]. We have to put the people in this country first.
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