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Senior UK cabinet members warned Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004 that free movement from new EU member states, including Poland, could put huge pressure on the benefits system and housing, new documents show. published.
The decision to allow migrants from 10 mainly eastern and central European countries, including Hungary and the Czech Republic, to work in the UK with few restrictions led to a sharp increase in immigration.
In 2005, the year after the decision, net EU migration to the UK reached 96,000 people, according to the Office for National Statistics, a sharp increase from 15,000 in 2003.
By the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016, this growth had helped make migration a hotly contested political issue.
Jack Straw, then the foreign secretary, and John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, raised significant concerns ahead of the decision, files released by the Cabinet Office show.
“We could face a very difficult situation if we get this wrong,” Straw warned in a letter on February 10, 2004.
He urged the prime minister to consider delaying the introduction of the policy, saying it would allow Britain to “monitor the movements” of migrants to other countries before a decision on implementation was made.
While the UK, Ireland and Sweden allowed free movement immediately in May 2004 with minimal restrictions, many others, including France and Germany, chose to delay full access to their labor markets, citing fears of mass migration. Countries had the option to impose restrictions until May 1, 2011.
The UK’s decision was partly based on a Home Office estimate that only 5,000-13,000 migrants would arrive each year from the new EU members. However, this turned out to be a huge understatement.
Annual net migration from EU member states had reached 142,000 by 2014, according to ONS estimates at the time, fueling a debate over British EU membership.
On 16 February 2004, Prescott wrote to Blair, formally asking him to delay. As Deputy Prime Minister he cited housing concerns, with migrants expected to gravitate to London and the South East in search of work, with the “likely result” of “overcrowded accommodation in poor areas” due to an inability to afford rent.
Straw told the Financial Times: “As events would show, we were wrong.”
“If we had good evidence about the effect of lifting restrictions on internal migration in the UK, I am clear that we would never have agreed to lift them,” he added.
“Keeping the restrictions, in hindsight, would have made a difference. . . for the result of the 2016 referendum; It’s impossible to say whether it’s enough to sway him,” he said.
Never-before-seen documents released by the National Archives show Blair took note of the concerns, asking officials whether an initial “work permit” scheme was practical. However, he ultimately decided against such a policy.
A July 2 briefing paper for Blair showed that 9,000 workers had registered to work in the UK in the two months after May 1, with 50,000-60,000 workers likely to arrive in the first year.
Officials warned against the “elephant trap” of media reporting the figures.
To counter accusations that the arrivals would lead to a surge in benefits claims, Blair told officials to “get in our media” reports that Poles would rather work illegally in Germany than legally in the UK.
He urged councilors to ensure they put together “the toughest benefits package possible” to counter the exorbitant claims from new EU migrants.
Blair declined to comment.
