Tony Blair’s Labour government pushed on with plans to open the UK’s borders to Eastern Europe despite mounting concerns from senior ministers, according to newly released official files.
The former prime minister relaxed immigration controls in 2004 after eight mainly former Soviet states, including Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, joined the EU.
Papers given to the National Archives in London show then deputy PM John Prescott and foreign secretary Jack Straw both urged delay to the policy, warning of a surge in immigration unless some restrictions were put in place.
But others – including then home secretary David Blunkett – argued that the economy needed the “flexibility and productivity of migrant labour” if it was to continue to prosper.
The records emerged as part of a yearly release of Cabinet Office files once they are 20 years old.
The papers also show:
Ministers in Blair’s government were advised to use post-it notes for sensitive messages to avoid having to release them under new Freedom of Information laws, which they had passed.
A senior US official warned the British ambassador to the US that George W Bush believed he was on a “mission from God” to crush Iraqi insurgents and had to be given a “dose of reality”.
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi felt like a “jilted lover” after being shut out of talks between Blair and the leaders of France and Germany.
Former prime minister Sir John Major privately wrote to Blair urging him to order England’s cricket team not to compete in a “morally repugnant” tour in Zimbabwe amid concerns about its human rights record under Robert Mugabe.
Image: Then foreign secretary Jack Straw had reservations about the plan
Calls for open borders re-think
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The Blair government’s open borders policy is seen as having helped fuel anti-EU sentiment by the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
There was a major increase in immigration in the years that followed, with net migration rising to more than 200,000 a year and cheaper foreign labour blamed for undercutting local workers.
In 2013, Mr Straw admitted that the failure to put in place any transitional controls – as nearly all other EU nations had done – had been a “spectacular mistake” which had far-reaching consequences.
According to the Cabinet papers, the Home Office had predicted the impact of allowing unrestricted access to the UK jobs market for the new countries would be relatively limited – but within weeks the numbers arriving were far outstripping previous estimates.
Three months before the policy was due to be implemented, Mr Straw wrote to Mr Blair calling for a re-think, warning that other countries “who we thought would be joining us have begun to peel away”.
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Sir Tony Blair on leadership
“France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece and Luxembourg are all imposing transition periods of at least two years. Portugal is likely to follow suit,” he wrote.
“Italy is undecided. Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark – who were with us – have all announced the introduction of work and/or residence permits for those wishing to avail themselves of the concession.”
He was backed by Mr Prescott who said he was “extremely concerned” about the pressures on social housing from a sudden influx of new migrants.
However Mr Blunkett, backed by work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith and the Treasury, insisted they should stick with the plan on “economic grounds”.
Image: Then Home Secretary David Blunkett backed the policy
He said that they would be tightening the regulations to stop migrants travelling to the UK simply to claim benefits but rejected calls for a work permit scheme as “not only expensive and bureaucratic but I believe ineffective”.
Mr Blair appeared to also express doubts, questioning whether tougher benefit rules on their own would be enough.
“Are we sure this does the trick? I don’t want to have to return to it,” he said in a handwritten note.
“I am not sure we shouldn’t have a work permits approach also. Why not? It gives us an extra string to our bow.”
Mr Blair also stressed the need to send out a deterrent “message” about benefits, writing in a note: “We must do the toughest package on benefits possible & announce this plus power to revoke visa plan and message to Romas.”
Bush ‘on mission from God’ in Iraq
Elsewhere in the Cabinet files, there was a record of frank conversations between Richard Armitage, the US deputy Secretary of State, and Britain’s ambassador to the US at the time, Sir David Manning, about the Iraq War.
In one meeting, Mr Armitage dismissed claims by the US commander in Iraq that he could put down a major uprising in the city of Fallujah within days as “bulls**t” and “politically crass”, and appealed for Mr Blair to use his influence with Mr Bush to persuade him there needed to be a wider “political process” if order was to be restored.
Image: Tony Blair with George Bush
In another meeting, Mr Armitage spoke of President Bush being faced with a “dose of reality” about the conflict.
Sir David reported: “Rich summed it all up by saying that Bush still thought he was on some sort of a mission from God, but that recent events had made him ‘rather more sober’.”
Italian PM felt like ‘jilted lover’
Other papers described a fall-out with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi after he was excluded from a trilateral summit of the UK, France and Germany.
He is said to have been “hurt” because unlike the other two nations he had backed Britain and the US over the invasion of Iraq, and threatened to challenge Britain’s EU rebate at every opportunity as a result.
In a report of a meeting between Britain’s ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, and Mr Berlusconi’s foreign affairs adviser, Giovanni Castellaneta, Sir Ivor wrote: “The gist of what he had to say was that Berlusconi was feeling badly let down by the prime minister.
Image: Tony Blair with Silvio Berlusconi inside number 10 Downing Street.
“He actually used the image of a jilted lover (very Berlusconi) and added that there was something of the southern Italian about Berlusconi which made him quite vindictive when he thought his affections had been misplaced or betrayed.
“The word ‘tradito’ (betrayed) came up quite often.”
The row even came up during a video conference between Mr Blair and Mr Bush the following week, with the US president expressing “some concern in a jokey way, on Berlusconi’s behalf, over Italy’s exclusion”, according to a Downing Street note of the call.
In the face of such concerns, Mr Blair felt it necessary to travel to Rome to personally placate the unhappy premier and assure him of his continuing support.
John Major’s Zimbabwe intervention
The papers also revealed that former Conservative prime minister John Major – who preceded Mr Blair – privately wrote to his successor to urge him to “indemnify” English cricket for any financial losses if it was sanctioned for pulling out of a controversial tour of Zimbabwe.
Sir John, a noted cricket fan, said the tour was “morally repugnant” given Robert Mugabe’s human rights record, but pointed out that “draconian” rules by the world game’s governing body (ICC) imposed penalties on countries for cancelling – putting English cricket at risk of bankruptcy.
The letter came after Mr Blair had told MPs that in his “personal opinion” the tour should be abandoned, but it would “step over the proper line” for ministers to issue an instruction
Image: Sir John Major
Mr Major said if the government “expresses a view” that the tour should not go ahead – or there was a vote in parliament to that effect – then it would be “very difficult” for the ICC to penalise England.
And in the “very unlikely circumstances” that it were to do so, he said the government should indemnify the ICC for any financial losses.
“I daresay the Treasury would hate this, but the blunt truth is that the government could not let English cricket go to the wall because of a refusal to intervene,” Mr Major wrote.
The tour ultimately went ahead.
Ministers urged to communicate in post-it notes
Meanwhile, other papers revealed that ministers in Blair’s government were advised to use post-it notes for sensitive messages to avoid having to release them under the new Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.
The Labour government had passed the bill in 2000, which requires public bodies to disclose information requested by the public, but as its full implementation date crept up in 2005 there was growing disquiet about its implications.
One No 10 adviser wrote to Mr Blair suggesting post-it notes – which could presumably then be thrown away once the message had been read – as a way of getting round the requirement to disclose official material in response to FoI requests.
Prisoners are being sent back to jail by the probation service because it’s the “easiest thing to do”, rather than solely for public protection, the chief inspector of probation has told Sky News.
Martin Jones cited caseload “pressure” in the service meaning officers are recalling people to jail to get them out of their “worry zone”, even if it has “relatively little impact on the protection of the public”, causing “overcrowded prisons” for “limited benefit.
“I think it’s a symptom of a system under huge pressure,” said Mr Jones.
“I’m not sure that the checks and balances are in place to ensure that it’s really about significant risk to the public. There is of course a difference between somebody, for example, committing a very serious sexual or violent offence and perhaps somebody who is released from custody on licence, they don’t have anywhere to live and they shoplift. They might face further charges. Is it really necessary for the protection of the public that person be recalled to custody?.”
The recall population in England and Wales – the number of prisoners sent back to jail after release – has more than doubled in the last decade. It now accounts for 15% of the total number of people behind bars.
Data published by the Ministry of Justice covering July-September 2024 showed there were 9,975 recalls, up 42% on the same period the previous year, and the highest quarterly recall statistics on record. It means that for every 100 people being released between July and September, 67 people were recalled.
It comes after the government introduced a new early release scheme in September, which saw thousands of offenders freed after serving 40% of their sentence, rather than 50%.
In the three months to September, nearly a quarter (24%) of recall cases involved a charge of further offending, with almost three-quarters (73%) of people recalled for “non-compliance” with license conditions.
That can include missing or turning up late to probation appointments, missing curfews, or poor behaviour. Homelessness, meaning offenders aren’t reporting to stable accommodation, is another significant recall factor.
In the past three years, the annual number of recalls for people who have faced no further charges while on license almost doubled, from 13,192 to 25,775 per year. Meanwhile the number recalled who have been charged with a new crime is almost exactly the same as it was then.
Less than a quarter of those recalled to prison in the year to September were charged with a new crime – the first time on record that figure has been that low.
There are a number of factors as to why the recall population has grown so much. These include longer sentences meaning lengthier license supervision periods on release, higher caseloads, and structural changes to the service meaning probation monitoring is required for all offenders.
Before 2014, it wasn’t required for those sentenced to less than a year in jail.
Early release schemes under the previous government and new measures introduced by Labour in September have contributed.
Changes to the recall process in April also mean that less serious offenders serving sentences of under 12 months will go back to prison for a fixed short period. It’s therefore possible for an offender who might have previously been back in prison for months, now to be released and recalled multiple times.
The number of recalls to releases has been growing. In 2013 prisons were recalling one prisoner for every five people released. That ratio is now 3:5.
Sky News spent an afternoon with ex-offenders in Burnley as they turned up to a charity service called Church on the Street, which offers support to help former criminals turn their lives around.
All of them had experiences and stories of recall, some more than once.
One man said he’d been “recalled for missing three appointments, for being drunk and under the influence”.
“Every time I’ve been recalled, it’s always been for 18 months, two years. It goes on for that long,” he said.
He accepts “responsibility” for breaking the rules but doesn’t feel it “warrants” lengthy terms back in jail for “no crime committed”.
Long sentences, sometimes for serious crimes, mean that when released at the halfway point prisoners are monitored by the probation service with lengthy license periods. If recalled, whether that be for a breach of a license condition or a further crime – they can end up serving the remainder of that sentence in prison.
Another ex-offender we met told us of a man who was released homeless, with a GPS tracking tag. He couldn’t charge his tag as had no electricity, without a home, and hence couldn’t be monitored by the probation service, and so was recalled to jail.
Image: Bishop Mick Fleming says the recall situation is ‘ridiculous’
Bishop Mick Fleming runs Church On The Street and calls the situation with recall “ridiculous”, saying that the community has noticed a “massive” increase, suggesting that both the prison and probation system is “failing”.
What’s being noticed outside jail in the community, is also being felt inside a pressured and crowded prison system.
When Sky News visited HMP Elmley in Kent in October, almost everyone we spoke to referenced issues with recall.
“It’s like a revolving door”, one serving offender told us. Another said, “cut the recalls down, and the prisons will be empty”.
“Cut the recalls down, and the prisons will be empty”
“We release a lot of people, they’re homeless, they come back within three days,” said a prison officer.
In a statement a Ministry of Justice spokesperson told Sky News that the number of recalled offenders in prison has “doubled” which they say has “contributed to the capacity crisis the new government inherited, with prisons days away from overflowing”.
They said it can take “months before a Parole Board decision on whether a recalled prisoner should be re-released and so we are looking at ways to reform the recall and re-release process, while retaining important safeguards to keep the public safe”.
Roads remain shut in Sheffield city centre as police continue to negotiate with a man who allegedly has weapons.
The incident at a block of flats in Broad Street has been going on for over 24 hours, with residents evacuated and spending Monday night at a nearby sports centre.
Police said they gained access to the building on Tuesday evening and reunited residents with their pets.
However, the Gateway flats remain evacuated and Sheffield Parkway is closed in both directions between Park Square roundabout and Derek Dooley Way.
Trams and buses have also been disrupted.
The Sheffield Star said thousands of commuters were affected on Tuesday morning, with some spending three hours trying to get to work.
South Yorkshire Police said the man is inside a property and is alleged to have weapons and be “a risk to himself”.
Police investigating the deaths of a British couple at their home in rural France have released details from a post-mortem examination.
Prosecutors say Dawn Searle, 56, was found at their property in Les Pesquies with “several” injuries to her head, while her husband, Andrew Searle, 62, was found hanged with no visible defensive injuries.
They are investigating whether the deaths are the result of a murder-suicide or if a third party was involved.
The pair are said to have been found dead by a German friend, who lives nearby, on Thursday after Mr Searle didn’t arrive for one of their regular dog walks.
The couple moved to the hamlet of Les Pesquies around a decade ago and married in the nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, in the south of France, in 2023.
Image: Andrew and Dawn Searle’s home
A statement from the office of public prosecutor Nicolas Rigot-Muller said Ms Searle was found partially dressed with a major wound to her skull next to a box with jewellery inside.
But no object or weapon was found that could’ve caused the wounds, which an autopsy carried out in Montpellier on Monday found were caused by a blunt and sharp object. There were no signs of sexual assault.
The house appeared to have been quickly searched, while some cash was found in the couple’s room.
Investigators are conducting further examinations, including toxicology and pathology tests, to help determine the precise circumstances of their deaths.
Image: A police officer outside Andrew and Dawn Searle’s home in France
Image: The village of Villefranche-de-Rouergue Aveyron
They each have two children from previous relationships and Ms Searle’s son, the country musician and former Hollyoaks star Callum Kerr, said they were in mourning in a statement posted on Saturday.
Family members are understood to have travelled to France, where they have spoken with investigators.
Speaking to Sky News from the town hall in which he conducted the couple’s wedding ceremony, he said: “It doesn’t seem like the problem comes from here because when we knew them and saw them living here they were very happy, very friendly and didn’t seem to have any problems.
“The problem seems to come from the past or somewhere far away.
“It’s an isolated act, it’s very independent. It doesn’t say that it’s a very dangerous territory, in fact, it’s very peaceful and that’s why probably Andy and Dawn chose to live here, because it’s very peaceful.
“Now, did their past come back and get them? That’s another story. That’s totally different from where we are. It could’ve happened anywhere.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson previously said: “We are supporting the family of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the local authorities.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK