The Prime Minister has scored a brilliant summer hit with the headline
writers. “EU migrant benefit curbs fast-tracked”; “Government announces
limits on EU migrants’ benefits access”; “New rules on migrant benefits to
be announced as UK makes system more robust against abuse”; and “Further
curbs to migrant access to benefits announced”.
Except, of course, these headlines are from December, January, February and
April respectively. His latest announcements on Europe and welfare are just
a matter of the Government still trying to play catch-up with public
opinion.
And while moves towards making our benefit system less open to abuse are
welcome, there are serious questions as to their legality. According to
European legislation, it is quite clear that all EU citizens must be treated
equally when it comes to benefits. Dotted through the European treaties are
references to this: Articles 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Articles
18, 20, 45 and 48 of the Treaty on the Functioning of The European Union.
The most explicit, Article 48, states very clearly that this equality
includes the “payment of benefits to persons resident in the territories of
Member States”.
Beyond the treaties themselves, there are EU laws that specify, “nationals of
an EU country and persons residing in that country without being nationals
of it are equal in terms of the rights and obligations provided for by the
national legislation. The provisions of this Regulation apply to all the
traditional branches of social security” including, but not exclusive to,
unemployment and family benefits. In other words, anything Mr Cameron does
to European immigrants, he has to do to British people, too.
This isn’t a matter of opinion. This is European law. It means that any
legislation that a UK government brings in to change benefits entitlement
must apply equally to UK citizens, or face the fiercest opposition in the
European courts. Put simply, the European Union in its current form will not
allow the British Government to do the things that the Prime Minister says
he wants to do to European migrants’ claims, without also applying those
changes to his own people.
If you want an illustration of where power lies in the EU, proof of how
impotent our membership of the union renders our government, remember that
the European Commission has already said that it is investigating this new
policy statement from the Prime Minister to see if it complies with European
law.
I cannot believe that Mr Cameron is seriously suggesting that these
restrictions apply to UK citizens as well. So it looks like an enormous
hostage to fortune.
That’s not the only problem with Mr Cameron’s promises. He casts the spotlight
on EU immigrants who come to the UK and claim unemployment benefits. He does
not address the far greater problem of in-work benefits such as tax credits.
It is the case that migrant workers are less likely to claim unemployment
benefit than British people. However, they are more likely to claim the far
more costly in-work benefits. This is due to the simple fact that they are,
in the main, at the lower end of the wage scale.
And this brings me to the real issue, the one that Mr Cameron and the rest of
the political class repeatedly skirt around, the one that makes his benefits
promises just so much window-dressing.
The problem with mass migration is not so much the misuse of benefits by a
minority – though that is wrong – but is the impact of mass, low-waged and
unskilled labour upon the wages, employment opportunities and services in
this country. I have been campaigning for years, not on the point of
benefits, but the impact of the sheer numbers.
Even Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, couldn’t help but
allude to the subject last week as he talked about a “staggering” 25 per
cent slump in demand from Europe for British exports, combined with what he
described as the effects of “more labour supply than we had previously
thought”. He went on to comment that we have “severe” structural problems
due to a “chronic” shortfall in housing. Yes, these things are related.
Just look at the way that growth is disproportionately helping the rich, who
benefit from cheap labour supply, while the low-waged see pay cuts and
freezes. The Local Government Association tells us that there will be a
shortfall of 130,000 primary school places in the next three years, caused
almost entirely by migration and a soaring birth rate among first-generation
migrants.
Open-door immigration from ex-communist countries with GDPs wildly different
from our own has resulted in a situation where the lives of millions of our
citizens are affected by an issue over which, due to our membership of the
European Union, we have no control. But the Prime Minister is promising to
bring in measures that will affect a few thousand people, rather than deal
with an issue that impacts on the lives of millions.
What Mr
Cameron’s article in The Telegraph yesterday really
shows is the fear in this Government of the public’s anger, and its
impotence in the face of its obligations to European law.
No amount of warm words or glib promises will provide any confidence that the
Government has either the will or the desire to act effectively on
migration. Nor will they change the fact that such action is impossible
while Britain remains a member of the European Union.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
(via Telegraph)
