The government has been accused of burying a report which proves that Britain does not have control over her own borders while remaining a member of the European Union.
The paper, entitled Rights and obligations of European Union membership confirms that Britain cannot block EU migrants “rights to enter, live and work” in Britain while we remain a member of the Union, despite the Prime Minister David Cameron’s claims to the contrary, as membership confers an “obligation to comply” with EU rules on free movement of peoples.
That means that anyone holding an EU member state passport can come to live in Britain, bringing their families with them.
The 96-page dossier is the last of a series of factual documents the Government was legally obliged to publish before the official start of the referendum campaigns. But unlike its supposedly impartial, factual leaflet setting out the Government’s reasons for recommending that the British people vote to remain part of the EU, upon which the Government lavished a £3m publicity budget, the dossiers have been released with little fanfare.
It comes as councils warn there will be a shortfall of 10,000 primary school places across England within the next four years.
Senior Tory MP Bill Cash, chairman of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, commented: “The Government is failing to tell the truth about the undemocratic basis of the working of the EU and its impact on everybody’s lives in the UK,” the Express has reported.
He added: “So many decisions are taken behind closed doors in Brussels and then pushed through Parliament, affecting our lives on a daily basis.”
Mr Cameron has previously suggested that Britain could opt out of the fundamental right on free movement of people across the EU, writing in 2013: It is time for a new settlement which recognises that free movement is a central principle of the EU, but it cannot be a completely unqualified one.
But as he prepared to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Brussels last year, his fellow European leaders warned him not make it a part of his renegotiation plans.
Szabolcs Takacs, Hungary’s EU minister said freedom of movement was a “red line,” while Slovakia’s Europe minister Peter Javorcik said: “They cannot be touched.”
In the end, he won only a seven year “emergency brake” on in-work benefits for migrants, with European leaders, not British ministers, handed control of the level to pull the brake.
Consequently the dossier makes it clear that “EU law gives all other EU nationals rights to enter, live and work in another member state as well as their family members and dependents,” and that “directives set out a legal framework that the member states have to follow. Once an EU directive has been agreed all member states have an obligation to make national laws that give it effect.”
It also says: “EU fundamental rights are binding on member states when they act within the scope of EU law.”
Speaking at a Leave event, prominent Brexiteer and former cabinet secretary Iain Duncan Smith asked: “Governments are elected promising to cut the numbers arriving, but how can they when we have to accept unrestricted freedom of movement from Europe?
“At the moment we have absolutely no ability to control the numbers of people coming to this country and that puts unsustainable pressure on our invaluable public services.”
He added reducing migrant numbers was not about “saying no migration – it’s about saying we want controlled migration.
“By getting back control we could let in the best and the brightest in the world – wherever they come from – welcoming them based on their talents, not their passports.”
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