Blair: We will not give up border controls
Prime Minister Tony Blair today rejected claims that Britain was giving up control over its borders by agreeing to scrap its veto on immigration and asylum.
Mr Blair insisted the UK retained the right not to take part in any European measures that it believed would harm the country.
Responding to questions at his monthly press conference, Mr Blair rejected suggestions that the UK was giving up its border controls, saying the UK remains in “complete control” and that “there is no question of Britain giving up our veto on border controls.”
Home Secretary David Blunkett is meeting with other EU ministers in Luxembourg today to discuss streamlining EU decisions on asylum and immigration, with ministers expected to agree to give up national vetos and move towards qualified majority voting.
The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, has accused the Government of being “gullible”, saying that: “Once we give up the veto, we will see the development of a whole body of European law which will put inexorable pressure on us to give up any opt-out clauses.”
Speaking on Monday though, Mr Blair argued that the UK has the best of both worlds with the current “opt-in” arrangement on asylum and immigration, where it is not obliged to have European laws, but where it wanted to take advantage of European-wide co-operation – as with people trafficking – it could do so.
“The idea that we’re going to give up border protection we secured is simply not true” he said, adding “We retain that absolutely without any qualification at all.”
In fact, Britain was “not giving anything up”, he insisted. It had been agreed years ago that voting on asylum and immigration measures would progressively move to qualified majority voting, and the discussions during the weekend were about more measures moving to that method.
QMV was in Britain’s interests because it meant small countries could not block measures important to Britain such as returning failed asylum-seekers to other countries, he said.
Mr Blair stressed that Britain’s opt-in on immigration and asylum had been in place for seven years, and it had not once opted into something that it did not want to take part in. If anyone wanted to challenge the legality of the opt-in, they would have done so at some point in the past seven years.
