EU & immigration; worms turning?

At last the thing that dare not speak its name is back on the political agenda.

 

Since the early 90’s, mentioning the EU was the political equivalent of farting in church, especially in the Tory Party.

 

Now the Cameronians have woken up to the fact that the totalitarian bureaucracy that masquerades as the European Union is a major issue for voters. Or to put it another way, the people hate the whole rotten edifice, so politicians better boss-up if they want the votes next time. The Tories are particularly scared of UKIP, not because there is much chance of Farrago winning seats but because he may snatch majorities away from the Conservative Party in marginals  or even more.

 

But still the propaganda is put out about how economically ruinous it would be if the UK was no longer a part of the European cartel.

 

Only the other night a ‘consultant’ from Cicero was saying that the UK exports to the EU are more than 50%, so we can’t afford to put that at risk.

 

That is a pretty terrible argument from one who probably charges a couple of grand a day for his precious words.

 

For starters, it isn’t true.

 

The real figure is in the 40’s. And before anyone says ‘Hooray, we are exporting more to the rest of world’, we ain’t. It’s simply that we are exporting less to the EU because of the dire state of the EU economies.

 

And the figures are wrong. Vast amounts of British goods are exported to the rest of the world via Rotterdam and other European ports, so they show up on the statistics as exports to the EU.

 

Finally, does any sentient person believe that the Europeans would stop buying our stuff if we change the rules of the game?

 

William Hague has broken the spell. Here is his latest (and there’s a lot of diplomatic meaning in this):

 

‘The Eurozone countries must do what they must to resolve the crisis, but the way forward for the EU as a whole is not more centralisation and uniformity but of flexibility and variable geometry, that allows differing degrees of integration in different areas, done in ways that do not disadvantage those that do not wish to participate in everything, and preserves the things we all value.”  

 

And the other great unmentionable is suddenly on the agenda big time, as the focus groups tell the expenses-cheats that immigration is one of the great concerns of the electorate.

 

Step forward Kitten Heels May.

 

Here’s her theme song:

 

If there's a wrong way to do it
A right way to screw it up
Nobody does it like me.

 

Desperately trying to be populist, she is vainly trying to reduce immigration to an unachievable target.

 

She cut hundreds of immigration officers to please wee George Osborne.

 

Then she got swamped with complaints about the ridiculous amount of time need to clear immigration at LHR and elsewhere.

 

So the miserable jobsworth in charge speeded up the system to please her by cutting a few corners.

 

This led to another media outcry so she fired the poor bugger.

 

She can’t do a lot about numbers because Blair gave a free pass to every benefit-seeker from the Roma in Eastern Europe, people-traffickers, pimps, whores and comic singers.

 

So to get the numbers, she clamped down on visas for key workers, from company bosses to skilled but hard-to-recruit staff. She then started to make life difficult for students who are vital to the finances of our places of higher learning, even cancelling visas to students in year 3, which she justified by quoting isolated abuses by rogue establishments, forgetting that ‘hard cases make bad law’.

 

She is now being trailed as a rising star.

 

I reckon she has a great future behind her.