Tony Blair’s Labour government pressed ahead with unrestricted migration from eastern Europe despite mounting concerns among senior ministers, according to newly-released official files.
Papers released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, show deputy prime minister John Prescott and foreign secretary Jack Straw both urged delay, warning of a surge in immigration unless some controls were put in place.
But others – including home secretary David Blunkett – argued that the economy needed the ‘flexibility and productivity of migrant labour’ if it was to continue to prosper.
The files from their discussions leading up to the EU’s enlargement in May 2004 suggest the government knew its immigration claims were ludicrously low.
Ministers had insisted between 5,000 and 13,000 migrants would come each year when former Soviet bloc countries such as Poland joined the EU on May 1 that year.
In the end, more than a million people from eight new member countries made the UK their home.
Whitehall papers from the time reveal growing unease behind the scenes in Downing Street as the numbers soared.
As the numbers arriving began far outstripping previous estimates, one official said they faced an ‘elephant trap’ and advised ministers to ‘err on the side of publishing less rather than more’ when it came to releasing official data.
Mr Straw later admitted that the failure to put in place any transitional controls – as nearly all other EU nations had done – had been a ‘spectacular mistake’ which had far-reaching consequences.
It was widely seen as having contributed to a major increase in immigration in the years that followed – with net migration rising to more than 200,000 a year – with cheap labour from Poland and other new member states blamed for undercutting local workers.
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