In a stunningly honest admission by Labour leader and Remain campaigner Jeremy Corbyn, a vote to remain as member of the European Union (EU) would mean NO limit to migration to the United Kingdom.
Speaking this morning on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Mr. Corbyn has said that there can be no upper limit on the number of people coming into the UK while there is free movement of labour in the EU.
Asked by Andrew Marr if there could be an upper limit for migration, Mr Corbyn said: “I don’t think you can have one while you have the free movement of labour.”
“The very principle of a single market across Europe is the free movement of people. If you have the free movement of capital you have the free movement of people.”
During the interview, Mr. Corbyn did concede that the the major draw for migrants to come to the UK was down to “lower living standards and increase poverty in certain countries in the south-east and eastern Europe” which was bound to cause a “flow of people looking for somewhere else to go”.
At least 1.6 million migrants have moved to the UK in the past decade, and following the accession of states such as Albania, Serbia and Turkey another 2.6 to five million migrants are predicted to come to live in the UK in the next 15 years if we vote to remain in the EU.
However, Mr. Corbyn’s continued support for Britain’s membership of the EU and its uncontrolled mass migration should reasonably be seen as contrary to Labour’s values. It was reported that cheap labour from the poorer regions of the EU is causing UK wages to be pushed down —directly affecting the working class Britons that Mr. Corbyn’s party believes it represents.
Jeremy Corbyn has, more than once since the beginning of the referendum campaign, been accused of being a ‘reluctant Europhile’, not least because of his rather lacklustre campaigning on behalf of Remain, but also due to the past clearly Eurosceptic sentiments that he expressed. In fact, Mr. Corbyn voted ‘No’ in the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Community (Common Market) – the predecessor to the EU – in 1975.
The free movement of trade and capital in the EU is intrinsically linked to uncontrolled immigration within the bloc: that is the situation as it is at present, and would be so should Britain vote to Remain — the price of EU membership that Mr. Corbyn readily accepts.