Tony Blair opened UK borders to east European migrants despite misgivings – newly released files show
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.
Then foreign secretary Jack Straw had reservations about the plan
Calls for open borders re-think
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”.
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.
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“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.
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.
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
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.
The UK has signed a long-awaited deal to hand control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
It means Britain will give up sovereignty of the Indian Ocean territory and lease back the vital UK-US Diego Garcia military base – at a cost of billions of pounds to the taxpayer.
Politics Live: Starmer signs deal to hand over UK control of Chagos Islands to Mauritius
In a news conference, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the base is of the “utmost significance to Britain”, having been used to deploy aircraft to “defeat terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan”, and “anticipate threats in the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific”.
He said the base was under threat because of Mauritius’s legal claim on the Chagos Islands, which has been recognised by multiple international courts.
“If we did not agree this deal, the legal situation would mean that we would not be able to prevent China or any other nation setting up their own bases on the outer islands, or carrying out joint exercises near our base,” Sir Keir said.
“We would have to explain to you, the British people and to our allies, that we’d lost control of this vital asset.
“No responsible government could let that happen, so there’s no alternative but to act in Britain’s national interest by agreeing to this deal.
“We will never gamble with national security.”
Aerial view of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Island group. Pic: AP
The deal means the UK will lease the base from the Mauritian government over 99 years.
Confusion over costs
Sir Keir said the average cost per year is £101m but the net overall cost is £3.4bn, not £10bn, and all public sector projects are measured in net costs.
However, there is confusion over the government’s calculations as the full agreement between the UK and Mauritius reveals the UK will pay:
• £165m a year for the first three years;
• £120m for years four to 13;
• £120m plus inflation for every year after to year 99;
• £40m as a one-off to a fund for Chagossians;
• £45m a year for 25 years for Mauritian development.
If inflation were to remain zero for the next century, this would work out to around £10bn over 99 years.
Assuming an average of 2% inflation, Sky News analysis suggests costs could rise as high as £30bn.
Downing Street stood by its figures, saying government accounting principles were applied to adjust for long-term costs and the value of the pound today is worth more than the pound in the future.
Officials denied suggestions from journalists that was financial sophistry, insisting it was “standard practice”.
Sir Keir said that had he not struck the deal today, Mauritius would have taken the UK to international courts and probably won, with extra penalties implemented.
However the Tories – who started negotiations in government – have branded the move a “surrender tax”.
Keir Starmer
Sovereignty row
The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius by the UK in 1965, when Mauritius was a British colony.
Mauritius gained independence from the UK in 1968 and since then has been trying to claim the archipelago as Mauritian.
In the late 1960s, the US asked the UK to expel everyone from the archipelago so they could build a naval support facility on the largest island, Diego Garcia. It is leased to the US but operates as a joint UK-US base.
The UK has been under pressure to hand back control of the territory, after the UN and the International Court of Justice sided with Mauritius.
The treaty said the deal would “complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius”.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said that “surrendering” the Chagos Islands to Mauritius “is an act of national self-harm”.
“It leaves us more exposed to China, and ignores the will of the Chagossian people. And we’re paying billions to do so,” she said.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage echoed those comments, accusing Sir Keir of caring more about foreign courts “than Britain’s national interest”.
The location of the Chagos Islands
‘Deal inherited from Tories’
However, Sir Keir said he “inherited a negotiation in which the principle of giving up UK sovereignty had already been conceded” by the Tories.
He said “all of the UK’s allies” support the deal, including the US, NATO, Five Eyes and India, and that those who are against it include “Russia, China, Iran…and surprisingly, the leader of the opposition, and Nigel Farage”.
Defence Secretary John Healey, who was also at the news conference, added that the last government failed to strike a deal despite 11 rounds of talks, leaving Labour to “pick up the challenge”.
He said ministers “toughened the terms and the protections and the control that Britain can exercise through this treaty”.
Under the deal’s terms, a 24-nautical mile buffer zone will be put in place around the island where nothing can be built or placed without UK consent.
The UK will retain full operational control of Diego Garcia, including the electromagnetic spectrum satellite used for communications which counters hostile interference.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said he welcomed the “historic agreement”, saying it “secures the long-term, stable and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia, which is critical to regional and global security”.
“We value both parties’ dedication. The US looks forward to our continued joint work to ensure the success of our shared operations,” he said.
The agreement had been due to be signed on Thursday morning but was temporarily blocked by an injunction hours before. A High Court Judge subsequently discharged the injunction at midday.
UK
Passengers injured after train hits trailer on level crossing near Leominster – as police arrest man
More than a dozen people have been injured after a train hit an agricultural trailer on a level crossing in Herefordshire, according to emergency services.
British Transport Police (BTP) said officers were called to the site north of Leominster at 10.40am on Thursday.
A man has been airlifted to hospital and a woman has also been taken to hospital.
A further 15 people, who were passengers on the train, were assessed by paramedics but discharged at the scene, West Midlands Ambulance Service said.
A spokesperson confirmed that nobody from the tractor-trailer required assessment.
Police have confirmed that a 32-year-old man from Bromyard has been arrested on suspicion of endangering safety on the railway.
Firefighters and officers from West Mercia Police also attended the scene.
A spokesperson for Transport for Wales (TfW) confirmed its 8.30am service between Manchester Piccadilly and Cardiff Central hit an “obstruction” at a crossing between Ludlow and Leominster.
All lines between the Hereford and Craven Arms stations are blocked and trains will not run between the two.
Replacement road transport is being put in place and TfW tickets are currently being accepted by Northern, Avanti, GWR and CrossCountry, it said.
Disruption is expected to last until the end of the day and a spokesperson for the company advised anyone travelling on Thursday to check before they travel.
A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said it was “called to an incident on the railway track at Nordan Farm, Leominster, at 10.46am”.
“On arrival crews found a man who was a passenger on the train, they treated him for non-life threatening injuries before conveying him by air ambulance to Hereford County Hospital,” they added.
“A woman was also treated for injuries not believed to be serious and conveyed by land ambulance to Hereford County Hospital.”
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said it had sent a team of inspectors to Leominster “between a passenger train and an agricultural trailer at a user worked level crossing”, which require people to operate the crossing themselves.
“Our inspectors will gather evidence as part of the process of conducting a preliminary examination and a decision on whether an investigation will be launched will be taken in the coming days,” the spokesperson added.
British Transport Police said its enquiries were ongoing into the full circumstances of the incident.
The economy will have to be “strong enough” for the government to U-turn on winter fuel payment cuts, the business secretary has said.
Jonathan Reynolds, talking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, also said the public would have to “wait for the actual budget” to make an announcement on it.
You can listen to the full interview on tomorrow’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast.
Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday he would ease the cut to the winter fuel payment, which has been removed from more than 10 million pensioners this winter after it became means-tested.
He and his ministers had insisted they would stick to their guns on the policy, even just hours before Sir Keir revealed his change of heart at Prime Minister’s Questions.
But Mr Reynolds revealed there is more at play to be able to change the policy.
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Winter fuel payment cuts to be reversed
“The economy has got to be strong enough to give you the capacity to make the kind of decisions people want us to see,” he said.
“We want people to know we’re listening.
“All the prime minister has said is ‘look, he’s listening, he’s aware of it.
“He wants a strong economy to be able to deliver for people.
“You’d have to wait for the actual budget to do that.”
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has committed to just one major fiscal event a year, meaning just one annual budget in the autumn.
Autumn budgets normally take place in October, with the last one at the end of the month.
If this year’s budget is around the same date it will leave little time for the extra winter fuel payments to be made as they are paid between November and December.
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