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Business News/ News / World/  Cameron puts immigration at heart of EU negotiations
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Cameron puts immigration at heart of EU negotiations

Cameron plans to restrict immigration from the EU by limiting access to National Insurance numbers for low-skilled workers

Cameron is currently seeking to renegotiate the terms of its relationship with the EU. Photo: BloombergPremium
Cameron is currently seeking to renegotiate the terms of its relationship with the EU. Photo: Bloomberg

London: UK Prime Minister David Cameron said he will put immigration from other European Union members at the center of talks with the 28-nation bloc in an attempt to stem the threat from the UK Independence Party.

“We are committed to putting EU migration right at the heart of our negotiations in Europe," Cameron wrote in a Sunday Telegraph article appealing to voters to back his Conservative Party in a straight contest with Labour at next May’s general election.

A vote for UKIP, which gives unconstrained immigration from EU countries as one reason for leaving the club, would help Labour win the election, Cameron said. The prime minister pledged in 2013 that he would call an in-or-out referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU in 2017 if he wins next year’s election. The government is currently seeking to renegotiate the terms of its relationship with the EU.

“It is only the Conservative Party that is offering you that in-out referendum on Europe in 2017," Cameron wrote in the article. “There would be a terrible irony if people who care about these issues voted UKIP — making a Labour government more likely. They would vote for controlled immigration and get the Labour politicians who opened Britain’s borders."

Cameron plans to restrict immigration from the EU by limiting access to National Insurance numbers for low-skilled workers, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday. The PM will include the cap in an upcoming speech setting out a tougher immigration policy, the newspaper said citing unidentified government officials.

Limiting migration

When asked about the report, outgoing European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said a limit on internal EU migration would contravene the club’s laws.

“The freedom of movement is a very important principle in the internal market," Barroso, whose term ends 31 October, said in a television interview on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show" today. “Any kind of arbitrary cap seems to me to be not in conformity with European rules."

The commission head warned the UK would have little influence globally if it left the political bloc.

“Britain is stronger in the European Union," he told Marr. “There is a willingness to accommodate the concerns of Britain, provided they are not incompatible to our overall agreed principles."

Cameron wants to reduce annual net immigration from 243,000 people in the year through March to fewer than 100,000 in 2015. He has promised tighter welfare rules for migrants and a block on people coming from countries that join the EU in the future.

Taking off’

“We’ve seen in the last few years a situation where the UK economy has taken off. Europe, in some cases, teeters on recession," Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said in an interview broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s “The World This Weekend" today. “We cannot have an open-ended situation where people are able to always come to Britain in such a lop-sided arrangement."

The leaders of the EU’s member states meet at a summit in Brussels on 23-24 October.

UKIP won its first elected seat in the House of Commons this month in Clacton in southeast England, following the defection of Conservative lawmaker Douglas Carswell. In the constituency of Rochester and Strood, southeast of London, Carswell’s friend Mark Reckless has followed suit and is bidding to win the seat for UKIP in a 20 November by-election.

The prime minister has not decided whether to unveil his plans for the National Insurance cap before the Rochester vote, the Sunday Times said on Sunday.

Vague promises’

“We will see what David Cameron can deliver, but at the moment all we’ve seen are vague promises aimed at the Rochester and Strood by-election because Tory Eurosceptics are defecting, instead of the practical plans and real action that is required," David Hanson, the opposition party’s spokesman for immigration matters, said today.

A ComRes poll published on Sunday in the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror newspapers found support for the Conservatives rose 2 percentage points to 31% in the last month, while Labour fell 1 point to 34%. The poll of 2,000 adults conducted on15-16 October showed backing for UKIP and the Liberal Democrats was unchanged at 19% and 7%, respectively. Bloomberg

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Published: 19 Oct 2014, 09:50 PM IST
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