The foreign secretary said the UK’s plan to stop migrants claiming in-work benefits for four years was the “only proposal on the table” right now.
But he said alternative ideas that had the “same effect” would be listened to.
This article published on December 14 2015 discusses the current state of the United Kingdom’s renegotiations on the immigration policies of the European Union. This article presents historians with the position of the British government as they attempted renegotiations on the United Kingdom’s immigration policy within the EU. This is highly important the current policies could decide the direction of the coming referendum on whether or not to leave the EU.
Both the British Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond are adamant that they will not budge on the issue of migration into the United Kingdom. Which according to the book European Immigration chapter 26 United Kingdom, has been an issue since the end of World War 2 with high and low tides of opinion. According to the article Migration Trends and Migration Policy in Europe published in International Migration, Volume 40, Issue 5, pages 151–179, Special Issue 2, 2002. the 1950’s and 1960’s were fairly liberal for the UK on migration laws before a high tide of restrictions in the 1970’s, with the year 2000 being the start of the current high tide forcing the issue. The plan proposed by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary would prevent migrants from claiming in work benefits for the next four years. But both are willing to consider other proposals that would result in a similar change in policy. The request for other proposals was raised when Boris Johnson the Mayor of London, and a Conservative MP claimed that the EU had “recklessly” shot down the British Proposal. One that the British government believed would satisfy the majority of their citizen’s demands. Others claimed that the EU needs to wake up to the public concerns from the UK.
This article was written for one of the larger newspapers in the United Kingdom to raise awareness on how the current round of renegotiation is going. As well as to reassure the British public that the government would not back down on the issue of migration cuts and at the same time trying to prevent the citizens of the UK from making any hasty decisions. I also detected a bias towards the British government with comments about the EU being reckless in its own policy and disapproval at no alternate proposals to the British plan.
Matthew Rimerman