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Immigration: we’re in control
Reporter: OUR LOBBY CORRESPONDENT
Date online: 17 March 2009
Oldham MP and immigration minister Phil Woolas today admitted voters do not believe the Government has “got control” of immigration.
A Financial Times/Harris poll found that more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of British adults think immigrants who are unemployed should be asked to leave the country.
And more than half (54 per cent) opposed the right of EU citizens to work in Britain.
Mr Woolas said: “The figures are not a surprise, they are a concern, and they are because the public doesn’t believe the Government has got control.”
The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP added: “It is a statement of the obvious — it was not under control and now we are getting it under control.”
Mr Woolas insisted Britain was “not a soft touch” and said hundreds of refugees risking their lives in Calais to get into Britain are “locked out, not queuing to get in”.
The UK‚s borders were tougher than that between the United States and Mexico, he added.
Mr Woolas said the Government was compiling a database of travel records, which will help track millions of people, but he admitted that „some inevitably do get through‰.
Mr Woolas was this morning due to appear before the Commons powerful Home Affairs Select Committee looking at migration.
Comments
Is that an admission the Blair government which he was a part of for 15 years now has run immigration in an incompetent manner? I don't see any evidence that there's any change under way at all. The only reason the border is more secure than the USD mexico one is because we have a moat!
The day Phil Woolas, Beverley Hughes or any other Nu-lab luminary is able to issue a name and address and means of identity for every single immigrant in this country since 1997 is the day we'll believe him!
Get real Phil.
Woolas said the Govt was compiling a database of travel records, to help track millions of people. Yet more smoke & mirrors from the Spinmeister. This crackpot scheme has nothing to do with refugees or immigrants, legal or illegal. It's another plan to micromanage the British population by spying on us every time WE wish to LEAVE the country. Do you trust the govt to keep your details safe in yet another database? More chicanery to deflect focus away from the Lab disaster on immigration.
The Government position is really very hard on immigration. Much of what we see as being immigration are "economic migrants" entering the UK under EU rules originally negotiated by the Tories.
All nations have a problem with ilegal migrants...but the Government is addressing this. The UK has actually done well out of the EU and the larger more flexible labour market.
I think Phil and the government are striking a better balance than elsewhere.
'The UK has actually done well out of the EU...'
Hmmm. Don't think so. We get less and less out than we put in. In other words a yearly DEFICIT. For what? Left-leaning laws, straight bananas and the banning of gnarled veg, not pleasing to the eye but perfectly edible. Mrs.Thatcher once correctly said, "All our problems come from mainland Europe." Time to leave this Franco-German stitch-up, apparently formed initially to stop them fighting each other!
If we are not such a soft touch why are there hundreds of thousand sill in the country waiting to be sent back and like mugs we are paying for them to eat sleep and work, living in houses that we need for people in our own country. Who is not a soft tuch then mr woolas, its not me thats keeping them here its your lot
if immigration was in control this country would have work for every man and woman in England. And we would have better wages than now I am on £5.70 per hour and have to work 40-50 hour a week can't get working credit and pay £120 a week rent. How would you live on that? I would like to see you try my council tax this year is for me £1009.00
We need a modern day ENOCH POWELL.
Have Your Say
Sorry phil! we dont believe you! every single figure you and your government comes up with is manipulated in some way to give us false view on it!
stop making it easier to live here! stop the free bank! its easy to get in! and its much harder to get them out once they're here!
By fedupoldhamer @ 17/03/2009 16:45:07