Labour made a ‘spectacular mistake’ on immigration, admits Jack Straw
Former Home Secretary admits opening Britain’s borders to migrants in 2004 was a ‘spectacular mistake’
Jack Straw has admitted that opening Britain’s borders to Eastern European migrants was a “spectacular mistake”.
The former Labour Home Secretary said his party’s decision to allow migrants from Poland and Hungary to work in Britain from 2004 was a ‘”well-intentioned policy we messed up”.
It comes a day after David Blunkett, Mr Straw’s successor as Home secretary, warned British cities could face riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people.
The last Labour government predicted that only 13,000 would move to Britain from Poland and other eastern European countries after 2004.
However, more than one million arrived in one of the biggest waves of immigration seen in this country.
Almost every other EU state, apart from Ireland and Sweden, prevented migrants from working for the seven years permitted.
Mr Straw, who is MP for Blackburn, told the Lancashire Telegraph: “One spectacular mistake in which I participated (not alone) was in lifting the transitional restrictions on the Eastern European states like Poland and Hungary which joined the EU in mid-2004.
“Other existing EU members, notably France and Germany, decided to stick to the general rule which prevented migrants from these new states from working until 2011.
“‘But we thought that it would be good for Britain if these folk could come and work here from 2004.
“Thorough research by the Home Office suggested that the impact of this benevolence would in any event be ‘relatively small, at between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants per year up to 2010’. Events proved these forecasts worthless.
“Net migration reached close to a quarter of a million at its peak in 2010. Lots of red faces, mine included.”
His comments are the furthest any senior Labour figure has gone in admitting the party made a mistake on immigration policy.
On Monday Mr Blunkett said anti-social behaviour by Roma people in his Sheffield constituency has resulted in “understandable tensions” among the indigenous community, and the conflict must be addressed to avert disorder.
Britain is now home to 200,000 Roma migrants, one of the largest populations in Western Europe.
Mr Blunkett said: “We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming Roma community – because there’s going to be an explosion otherwise.
“We have got to be tough and robust in saying to people, “you are not living in a downtrodden village or woodland” – because many of them don’t live in areas where there are toilets or refuse collection facilities.”
Earlier this year, Chris Bryant, Labour’s immigration spokesman, said it was wrong to ditch controls on migrants in 2004 and claimed far more workers came to Britain “than anybody had anticipated”.
The admission came a year after spin doctors for Ed Miliband suggested the Labour leader would admit in a speech that the party’s failures on immigration had increased community tensions in Britain. However, the comments were later dropped.
He had been expected to say: “We did too little to tackle the realities of segregation in communities that were struggling to cope.”
But the admission was dropped in favour of a vague statement that the party had made “mistakes”.