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. Today at the morning lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman wasn’t particularly willing to discuss reports that appeared over the weekend of his own plans to stem the flow when the controls do lift – which they will have to unless Britain wants a legal challenge from Brussels (which is what some MPs want, even if the only result is that the government gives the impression that it has tried everything it possibly can to be tough on the new migrants) – and would only comment that ministers are considering what more can be done. The spokesman said:
‘The government is taking action. Of course we are looking at what more can be done.’
But the spokesman was clear that any action would be ‘within the law’, which while quite obvious does mean that there isn’t really a great deal ministers can do.
What’s striking about this debate is that it first erupted in January with one of the first political interviews of the year: Eric Pickles on the Sunday Politics. But while ministers have announced some measures to appear tough, backbenchers are still pushing for the same thing they were calling for when this row first blew up. This shows how powerless the government is, as there has been so little that ministers can offer to assuage the fears of MPs nervous about the political impact of these new migrants. Indeed, as Benedict Brogan explains here, ministers have been able to do very little on this for a while, with or without transitional controls. Now we are just weeks away from the controls lifting, and the debate has taken all year to move just a few inches.
MPs supporting the amendment calling for transitional controls to be extended to 2018:
Nigel Mills
Peter Bone
Philip Hollobone
Douglas Carswell
Philip Davies
David Nuttall
Stephen Barclay
Charles Walker
Andrew Percy
Andrew Bridgen
Andrew Rosindell
Mark Pritchard
Christopher Chope
Jason McCartney
Tracey Crouch
Andrew Turner
Dr Julian Lewis
Karl McCartney
Martin Vickers
John Redwood
Sir Gerald Howarth
Nick de Bois
David T. C. Davies
Stewart Jackson
Bob Blackman
Mark Reckless
Laurence Robertson
John Whittingdale
Aidan Burley
Henry Smith
Sir Edward Leigh
Sir Gerald Howarth
Charlotte Leslie
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