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Immigration Solicitors

EU will block UK attempts to restrict free movement (20 January 2014)

Date: 20/01/2014
Duncan Lewis, Immigration Solicitors, EU will block UK attempts to restrict free movement

The EU has said that the UK will not be allowed to “unpick EU treaties” and rewrite one of the EU’s fundamental principles of freedom of movement between member states.

President of the European Parliament Martin Schultz said that rules on free movement within the EU were “non negotiable” and any attempts to alter them would be blocked. Mr Schultz is a member of the German Social Democrat party and said he would like the UK to remain in the EU but renegotiating the Treaty’s free movement principle was not possible:

“The principle of free movement of people has been one of the greatest successes the EU has, it is a fundamental principle and it's not up for negotiation, any more than renegotiating the principle of the free movement of goods, services or capital.”

Mr Schultz said that the UK was not the only member state questioning freedom of movement and its effects on individual EU member states – but said that the Treaty required the committed support of all member states.

However, 95 Conservative MPs have written to Prime Minister David Cameron demanding that the UK has the right to veto every EU law. The backbench rebellion led by Bernard Jenkin is demanding that the effects of Human Rights Law in the UK be limited so that immigration can be controlled more.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has spoken of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and reinstating the Supreme Court as the highest appeal court in England and Wales. Home Office decisions and rulings in British courts can be overturned by Strasbourg, making deporting failed asylum seekers and convicted criminals from overseas more difficult for the government.

However, as the Conservative Party discusses capping the number of EU migrants allowed to come to Britain each year, a chaplain to the Queen, the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, has spoken in support of immigration to Britain, claiming immigration has made the British people “less emotionally cold” – and saying that opposition to immigration is the result of “plain ignorance”.

The Rev Hudson-Wilkin is tipped to become one of the first female Church of England bishops. She became the first black female chaplain to the House of Commons and is also chaplain to two parishes in East London.

She said that the UK had changed since she first arrived from her native Jamaica in 1979 and told BBC Desert Islands discs presenter Kirsty Young that she found Britain and its people “cold” when she first arrived.

“And it wasn't just the atmosphere that was cold – people felt cold. People didn't touch – we talk and we touch.”

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