David Cameron knows that the only criticism from other parties of his plans to restrict welfare access for new migrants will be that he isn’t being tough enough. Such is the fear on all sides of being accused of repeating what the Prime Minister describes in his FT article as the ‘monumental mistake’ of the last Labour government that the only option on the table for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will be to support the move. It will be interesting to see how Miliband fares at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Given Labour has put forward its own ‘tough’ proposals and given Yvette Cooper went to such lengths to complain that the Immigration Bill wasn’t harsh enough, the Labour leader may choose to argue that Cameron isn’t going as far as Labour has now proposed. If he doesn’t make a play for the immigration issue himself, he knows that Cameron, now a masterful shoehorner of pet topics at PMQs, will bring up the ‘monumental mistake’ anyway.
But aside from the show of muscles between the party leaders on the pressing issue of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, the bigger line in Cameron’s announcement is his determination to tackle freedom of movement as part of his renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe. I reported in my Telegraph column recently that Conservative MPs were growing very nervous indeed about not having enough to offer on the doorstep in next year’s European elections: this appears to be an attempt to soothe those nerves. It is also designed to reassure Conservative MPs that the Prime Minister is thinking big about the renegotiation, rather than aiming for a few miserly concessions from European leaders on the Working Time Directive.
More immediately the Conservative party has been facing another revolt on immigration, and Coffee House revealed last night that 1922 Committee chair Graham Brady is now supporting that rebel amendment from Nigel Mills on extending transitional controls. It will be interesting to see whether today’s announcement takes the sting out of that rebellion. It is certainly aimed at taking the stings out of a number of tails at once.
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