Tony Blair ignored Cabinet warnings of the political impact of mass EU migration ...Middle East

Tony Blair forged ahead with plans to give unrestricted access to Britain to eastern European migrants, despite objections from some of the most senior members of his Cabinet, according to official documents.

The decision to open the UK’s borders to citizens from eight former-Soviet bloc countries as they joined the European Union in May 2004 led to an unexpectedly large influx of migrant workers from countries including Poland, Hungary and the Baltic nations.

Senior Labour politicians have since acknowledged that the decision not to follow other EU countries such as France and Germany by restricting access to their labour markets was a serious error. Former home secretary Jack Straw has described the move as a “spectacular mistake”.

According to one estimate, nearly 130,000 Eastern European workers arrived in Britain in the first 12 months of enlargement – more than 20 times the highest Home Office estimate. However, Blair has continued to champion freedom of movement, insisting the policy was “important for our security, important for our economy”.

Although cabinet tensions over EU migration were reported at the time, papers released at the National Archives in Kew, west London, today reveal the extent of the row within the Labour government as the changes were put in place, with then foreign secretary Straw and deputy prime minister John Prescott leading calls from within Cabinet for a delay to implementation of the policy.

Concerns within the Government at freedom of movement were in part triggered by a shift in position by other EU countries as the deadline approached for the accession of the so-called “A8” nations – Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia. A succession of existing EU countries – including important economies such as France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands – had initially indicated they would allow the “concession” of free movement of citizens from the A8 countries, only to then impose work restrictions.

This left the UK alone among major nations in signalling it was ready to accept all arrivals. In a letter to the prime minister three months before the May deadline, Straw said: “If we do not think this through now, I believe we could be faced with a very difficult situation in early May, and could then be forced to take urgent action to suspend the concessions, in the least propitious of circumstances.

“In particular, whilst some EU member states were never going to give this concession, other EU member states who we thought would be joining us have begun to peel away.”

Straw received strong backing from Prescott, who wrote to the prime minister saying a delay should be considered and he was “extremely concerned” about the potential pressures on social housing as migrant workers moved to wealthier areas to find employment, only to find themselves unable to afford high rents in cities such as London.

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Prescott said freedom of movement should be deferred until “all the implications” of the policy had become clear. He added: “It is very important that we get this right and do not adopt a position that we may have to reconsider within a short period.”

Others within the Labour government, however, adopted a different position, arguing that there was an unanswerable economic case for allowing an influx from eastern Europe. Home secretary David Blunkett and work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith insisted that the plans, first drawn up in 2002, should go ahead.

Blunkett told Blair: “On purely technical, economic grounds there can be no doubt that our present policy is the right one. Our economy needs the flexibility and productivity of migrant labour which is a key part of our continued economic success.”

Pointing out that regulations were being tightened to stop A8 citizens from travelling to the UK to claim benefits, Blunkett also rejected calls for a work permit scheme as “not only expensive and bureaucratic but I believe ineffective”.

The documents suggest that the prime minister himself was also becoming concerned at the ramifications of the policy, questioning whether the tougher benefit rules would work and suggesting that the work permit option should indeed be kept open.

In a handwritten note, he said: “Are we sure this does the trick? I don’t want to have to return to it. I am not sure we shouldn’t have a work permits approach also. Why not? It gives us an extra string to our bow.”

After the accession of the eight countries went ahead, Labour ministers insisted that their prediction that freedom of movement would not lead to an immigration surge was being borne out. Blunkett, whose officials had said the increase in the population would be no more than 13,000, said “the predicted dramatic increase of new arrivals has not materialised”.

But behind the scenes it was becoming clear that the Home Office forecast was proving wildly inaccurate, even as ministers were being advised to say “less rather than more” about the level of arrivals.

Kate Gross, a senior Downing Street adviser on immigration, said in July 2004 that the government faced an “elephant trap” of the original Home Office estimate being shown to have been grossly inaccurate.

She wrote: “In practice, the actual number of new arrivals since May 1 is only 9,000. But at the current rate of increase this number will exceed the 13,000 prediction by the end of August, and if applications continue at the current rate would hit 50-60,000 new arrivals by May 2005.”

According to subsequent research, about 129,000 A8 migrants entered Britain by the end of 2005, starting a pattern of increased immigration in the following years, which reached a peak of more than 200,000 net arrivals per annum.

The subsequent failure of successive governments to reduce those figures is now regarded as one of the factors which fuelled anti-EU sentiment in the UK, ultimately leading to the 2016 Brexit vote.

Blair has previously acknowledged that his government did not realise just how many people would arrive in the UK after the 2004 enlargement but insisted that allowing the influx had been the correct decision.

Speaking to the BBC in 2017, the former prime minister said: “No, we didn’t know the numbers. But by the way, it’s very important to realise two things. When these countries joined the EU, [it was] very important for us that they did join the EU – important for our security, important for our economy. There was freedom of movement of people immediately.”

How did migration changes impact the UK?

The impact of the inbound migration wave started by the accession to the EU in 2004 of eight former-Soviet bloc has long been a complex issue.

As happened in Tony Blair’s cabinet two decades ago, opinion has tended to divide between the perceived economic benefits of migration – an influx of skills and increased tax receipts – and the wider effects in areas such as demand on stretched public services, housing and social integration.

What was the level of EU migration to the UK?

That the “A8” accession led to sharp and sustained spike in inward EU migration to Britain from 2004 onwards seems beyond doubt.

According to figures compiled by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, the number of EU citizens entering and staying in the UK for 2004 and 2005 was 84,000 and 96,000 respectively, compared to 7,000 in 2002 and 15,000 in 2003. The annual figure then rose steadily to 127,000 in 2007 before dipping as a result of the financial crisis in 2008 and then rising sharply again after 2012. By the time of the Brexit referendum  in 2016 it was running at 282,400 people a year.

In the 12 years between 2004 and 2016, total net migration to the UK from the EU was 1.94m.

What was the economic impact?

Advocates of freedom of movement argued strongly that Britain and its economy stood to gain considerably from an influx of skilled and motivated workers, especially if measures were put in place to prevent abuse of the benefit system.

Research suggests that in pure financial terms this was broadly correct, with increased tax income and an increase in supply of labour to sectors ranging from agriculture to healthcare.

According to one authoritative study by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, eastern European migrants directly added some £4.9bn to the UK economy in the five years after 2004 – equivalent to 0.4 per cent of GDP.

Separate figures produced by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent body, found that the average adult European migrant to the UK paid £2,300 more in taxes per annum than the average UK resident. In total, EU migrants paid £4.7bn a year more in taxes than they received in benefits or public services.

Critics of such measures argued, however, that any positive impact on the economy was more marginal. According to Migration Watch, which lobbies lower migration to the UK, A8 migrants added about one per cent to the UK population but only about 0.3 per cent to per capita GDP.

There is also a separate argument that Western economies such as the UK have become too reliant on immigration to meet labour shortfalls amid ageing populations and need to do more to drive growth without migration.

What have been the wider impacts?

Assessing the effects of immigration on areas such as housing, job growth or public services is a notoriously vexed question.

Broadly speaking, the fact that EU migrants tended to be younger adults has meant they are likely to be net contributors to the NHS – working in the health service while also being less likely to require its ...

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