Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Senior members of the British government warned Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004 that free movement from new EU member states, including Poland, could put major pressure on the benefits and housing system, newly released documents show.
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 has led to a surge in immigration.
In 2005, the year after the decision, net migration from the EU to the UK reached 96,000 people, according to the Office for National Statistics, a sharp increase from 15,000 in 2003.
At the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016, this increase helped to migration a highly contested political issue.
Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, and John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, expressed significant concerns ahead of the decision, files released by the cabinet show.
“We could find ourselves in a very difficult situation if we get this wrong,” Straw warned Blair in a letter on February 10, 2004.
He asked the prime minister to consider delaying the introduction of the policy, saying it would allow Britain to “monitor the movement” of migrants to other countries before a decision on implementation is made.
While the UK, Ireland and Sweden immediately allowed free movement with minimal restrictions in May 2004, many others, including France and Germany, chose to delay full access to their labor markets, citing fears of mass migration. Countries had the option of introducing restrictions until May 1, 2011.
The UK’s decision was partly based on Home Office estimates that only 5,000-13,000 migrants would arrive each year from the new EU member states. However, this turned out to be a huge understatement.
Annual net migration from EU member states reached 142,000 by 2014, according to ONS estimates at the time, fueling the debate over Britain’s EU membership.
On 16 February 2004, Prescott wrote to Blair, formally urging him to postpone. As Deputy Prime Minister, he cited concerns about housing, with migrants expected to gravitate to London and the South East in search of work, with the “likely result” of “overcrowded accommodation in deprived areas” due to an inability to afford rent.
Straw told the Financial Times: “As events have shown, we got it wrong.”
“If we had good evidence of the effect of our lifting restrictions on internal migration to the UK, it is clear to me that we would never have agreed to lift them,” he added.
“Keeping the restrictions would, in retrospect, have brought about some changes. . . on the result of the 2016 referendum; whether it is enough for momentum, it is impossible to say,” he said.
Previously unseen documents released by the National Archives show Blair considered the concerns, questioning officials about whether the initial “work permit” scheme was practical. However, in the end he decided against such a policy.
A July 2 briefing paper for Blair showed that 9,000 workers had applied to work in the UK in the two months after May 1, with 50,000-60,000 workers potentially arriving in the first year.
Officials have warned of an “elephant trap” in which the media reports on the numbers.
To counter accusations that the arrivals would lead to a rise in benefits claims, Blair told officials they were “getting in the media” reports that Poles would rather work illegally in Germany than legally in the UK.
He asked advisers to ensure they put together the “hardest possible benefits package” to counter the potentially excessive demands of new EU migrants.
Blair declined to comment.
