Blair ignored calls against open border to EU migrants

Tony Blair's government pressed ahead with plans to grant unrestricted access to the UK for workers from eastern Europe despite mounting concerns among senior ministers, according to newly-released official files.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN and GAVIN CORDON

Papers released at the National Archives in Kew, west London, have revealed how 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.

The move was widely seen as having contributed to a major increase in immigration in the years that followed. With successive governments struggling to get the numbers back under control, it is feared to have helped fuel the anti-EU sentiment which culminated in the 2016 Brexit vote.

The Home Office had predicted the impact of allowing free access to the UK jobs market for eight states which joined the EU in 2004 would lead to a net increase of no more than 13,000 workers a year.

Then-home secretary David Blunkett argued that the economy needed the “flexibility and productivity of migrant labour” if it was to continue to prosper.

However, within weeks, the files show the numbers arriving were far outstripping the estimates, with one official warning they could see 50,000-60,000 arrivals in the first year.