Immigration

What with Britain’s dreadful performance in the PISA educational rankings, there has been comparatively little attention given to another international league table– Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. The good news is that Bulgaria and Romania, with whom we will become much more intimate next month, are already in the EU’s top 5 for corruption, placed 2nd and 4th, with Greece, Italy and Slovakia filling out the leader board. I don’t object to Romanian and Bulgarian EU citizens being able to come to Britain as such, I object to the very idea of these countries joining the polity of which I am a member. But then I’m not too happy about being part of the same state as Greece and Italy, for the same reason.

David Cameron's restrictions on welfare for new migrants have pleased Tory backbenchers - but not enough for them to drop their Commons campaign for the transitional immigration controls to be extended. There are now 46 Conservative MPs signed up to support it, and I've just spoken to Nigel Mills, who tabled the amendment, who said: 'The Prime Minister's announcements are welcome steps in the right direction. However the issues with our current levels of unemployment and pressures on other public services would not be tackled so I still believe we need to keep the restrictions in place, and so I will still proceed with my amendment.' Labour is briefing that it was the growing support Mills's amendment that pushed Downing Street into announcing all these new restrictions today.

The swell of support continues for Nigel Mills' amendment to the Immigration Bill which would most likely land the British government in court by trying to extend transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to 2018. I have learned that Graham Brady, influential chair of the 1922 Committee, has now signed the amendment too, and the rebels organising behind it tell me they now have more than 40 backers. The list now includes a number of 1922 Committee executive members, including Nick de Bois, John Whittingdale, Charles Walker and Jason McCartney.

There are now 33 MPs backing Nigel Mills's amendment to the Immigration Bill which calls for transitional controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants to be extended until 2018. You can read the full list of names below - the amendment will be debated at the report stage of the bill, which is expected to take place in the next few weeks.

From Fraser Nelson: David Cameron proposing delaying welfare payments to EU immigrants – which some might see as his listening more to Lynton Crosby and less to the likes of modernisers like Nick Boles (whose approach to politics Bruce Anderson critiques below). But Boles has advocated going far further: deporting EU immigrants who don’t work. He believes he has found a clause in EU law that allows it. Given that Boles is generally seen as an uber-moderniser,  I thought Coffee Housers may be interested in seeing another side to his political thought -  a deportation plan which is further than most right-wing Tory MPs would go.  The below is abridged from his book 'Which Way’s Up'? I have changed my mind about immigration.

For months now, Number 10 has been fretting about what to do about Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. From the end of this year, any Romanian and Bulgarian will be able to move here in search of work. Downing Street knows that if they come in large numbers it’ll negate everything that the government has done to try and get immigration under control. Fairly or not, it’ll be fatal to the Tories’ reputation for competence on this issue. David Cameron is, as today’s Times and Mail reveal, now planning a major intervention on this issue. He wants to achieve three things. First, show that his government is handling the issue better than Labour did.

Another outbreak of the Tory Modernising Wars! What larks! Nick Boles's speech to Bright Blue, a newish think tank for metropolitan swells folk who think the Tory message needs rethinking, has, as it was designed to, caused a minor rumpus. Rod Liddle thinks Boles is off his head. Iain Martin is kinder but concludes the Cameroons are still obsessed with fighting the wrong battles. Other commentators are gentler still, conceding that Boles is asking the right question but that he's searching for answers in the wrong places. Nick Denys and, to some extent, Paul Goodman fall into this camp. On the other hand, Ian Birrell and Matt d'Ancona essentially agree with Boles while James Kirkup concludes that Boles has inadvertently conceded the failure of the Cameroon modernisation project.

Tensions between Roma migrants and communities in Sheffield have risen this week, and the city’s most prominent MPs have voiced their concerns. Yesterday, Sebastian noted David Blunkett’s warning about the possibility of riots unless migrants change their behaviour. Today, Nick Clegg has echoed Blunkett by calling for migrants to moderate their ‘intimidating’ and ‘offensive’ ways. It is, of course, easier to say such things than to act on them; but it would be churlish not to accept that metropolitan Britain is beginning to talk more openly – and even honestly – about some of the deleterious social and cultural effects of immigration.