Immigration

Another day, another mixed message from the government over its position on Brexit. This time it’s immigration that has become the source of confusion after the Home Secretary and her minister appeared to come up with conflicting lines this morning. In an article for the Financial Times, Amber Rudd said she wanted to reassure businesses and EU nationals that ‘we will ensure there is no “cliff edge” once we leave the bloc’. To do this, she said the flow of EU workers would continue for an ‘implementation period’ after Britain’s exit. However, speaking on the Today programme, Brandon Lewis – the Home Office minister – appeared to take a more

The Empire for International Development has a tough job justifying its deeply unpopular budget. In recent years, it has made out that development aid will stem the flow of migration. The following line appears in a piece that Priti Patel, the DFID Secretary, writes for the Sunday Telegraph today. We are taking immediate steps to protect our borders and tackle people smuggling. But the only way to resolve this crisis in the long term is to address the root causes. We need to create jobs across Africa and provide its growing population with a route out of poverty where they are. Her overall point – about how Africa needs more capitalism – is brave and

British government may not be strong and stable but the economy is still the most formidable job creating machine in Europe. And while it’s certainly true that much of the rise in employment is down to immigration, British unemployment is also down – figures today show the lowest level since 1975. My old friend Simon Nixon writes in the Times today about Britain becoming the new basket case of Europe, and has been making similar noises since the Brexit vote. He may well he right, but so far this basket is carrying more jobs than at any time in history. Don’t expect the Tories to make this point: they’ve been out

We were in a detention centre for migrants in Tripoli and we came to a big locked door. It was impressively bolted and padlocked. Someone murmured that we didn’t have time to look inside. But I felt somehow obliged to do so. Outside in the sun I had already said hello to about 100 migrants — almost all of them from West Africa: Guinea-Conakry and Nigeria. They were sitting on the concrete in rows, their heads in their hands; the men in one group, and about half a dozen women a little way off. They had been here for months, in some cases, and they wanted to go home. Kwasi

It’s easy to mock Nigel Farage over his decision to turn down an ‘easy win’ in Clacton or some other Westminster constituency in preference for the hard graft of the European Parliament and its excruciating regime of expenses and allowances. Easy, but quite likely wrong.  Whether or not he ever sets foot in Parliament, Farage can already claim to have changed British history. His role in the Brexit referendum result is debateable; his role in bringing about that referendum isn’t.   Just in case the story needs retelling, Farage did it by forming a connection between two issues: Europe and immigration. Until that linkage was made, Ukip was an ignorable

‘Take back control’ was the mantra of the Brexit bunch during the referendum – but eight months on, Britain is still waiting to be handed the keys. Next month, says the Daily Telegraph, part of the wait could be over. The paper reports that Theresa May is planning to announce an end to free movement for EU migrants when she triggers Article 50 in March. If this is true, we should celebrate the Prime Minister’s decisiveness, the paper says, hailing the plan as both legal – given that it ‘will only take effect after Brexit’ – and ‘sensible’ – to avoid a rush of migrants coming to Britain before the door slams shut.