The alteration in the political discourse surrounding immigration coincided with an intensifying anti-EU discourse as Eurosceptics became incited over Britain’s involvement in the bailouts of Ireland (£10 billion, see Chapter 4), Portugal (£4.2 billion), and Greece (£1 billion). This was despite declarations from both the PM and Chancellor to avoid such bailouts. The Adam Smith Institute also criticised Britain’s involvement, claiming such actions reversed the benefits of the country remaining outside of the Eurozone and made “a mockery of the spending cuts” (The Telegraph, November 2010d). Ultimately, the Eurozone crisis cast doubt
171 over the economic competence and benefits of the EU, bestowing more political questioning in Britain.
Consequently, a “significant argument” developed that the government was driving immigration anxiety not the public (Interview 9, April 2015; Hatton, 2014: 8). After all, in Britain there was a substantial electoral and political incentive in targeting free movement and perpetuating “the ‘threat’ of open doors eastwards as a tool for berating the impact of the EU” (Favell, 2008: 703), particularly under a Eurosceptic Conservative government. Some of those interviewed claimed the issue with free movement was a “fig leaf” (Interview 1, December 2014) for the lack of national investment that had led to the social challenges with free movement. Others similarly claimed the issue with free movement was “a scapegoat for domestic problems” (Interview 10, April 2015). For instance, David Cameron, the PM at the time, cited the threat of mass immigration contributing to the governments controversial decision to provide an unprecedented £10 billion loan to the Irish state. He asserted economic collapse in Ireland “would have a huge impact on Irish people coming to the UK for work” (The Telegraph, November 2010e). As one interviewee affirmed, “free movement gets instrumentalised by political actors for whom it is convenient to instrumentalise it” (Interview 11, April 2015).
Similarly, the legal dispute between the EU and Britain over the Right to Reside test drove public anxiety over immigration. This legal dispute was a key illustration of the conceptual differences between the EU and Britain over free movement. The EU defined the status of a ‘worker’ very broadly to enable people to seek employment so to truly be a free moving worker (Interview 8, March 2015) hence, free movement “unavoidably has an impact on other national policies which are the competence of EU Member States” (Interview 6, March 2015). The EU opposed the test claiming it discriminated against EU nationals with British and Irish citizens automatically passing and accessing British welfare benefits based on their British citizenship (EC Press Release, 2011b). Despite Britain’s legal victory nationally (see Supreme Court, Patmalniece case 2004), the EU remained firm in its position requesting for the test to be brought “into line with EU law” (ibid) within two months.
Consequently, Britain’s relationship with the EU became strained over the matter as in comparison to other member states, the state was “more vocally resistant to Commission pressure to change various aspects of its policies” (Interview 11, April 2105). As demonstrated by Ian Duncan Smith’s, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions at the time, retort in The Telegraph which incited further national immigration anxiety. Smith maintained that inactive
172 EU nationals83arrived “with the sole purpose of accessing a more generous benefit system”
(The Telegraph, September 2011b). This perpetuated those post-enlargement concerns and sowed the seeds for the national concern over so-called ‘benefit tourism’. Additionally, reflecting the uniqueness of the British welfare model, Smith maintained it presented a threat to Britain’s social contract with its citizens by way of breaking “the vital link which should exist between taxpayers and their own Government” (ibid). ‘Crisis progression’ was once again being harnessed to inhibit the EU from dictating national social policy (Chapter 5), namely in relation to paying the unemployed, so to assist the government in delivering its austerity policy.
Inevitably, on account of free movements centrality to the European Project and EU citizenship alike, the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs of the time, Laszlo Andor, responded defiantly. He stated that legally the EU was “very sound” with it being “very important” that where EU nationals cannot secure employment immediately they have access to welfare benefits (BBC News, September 2011b). Andor declared it was possible that EU nationals could move to a host state where benefits were higher than their home state, however “since we have a European Labour market we have to accept this as a fact” (ibid). As substantiated by an economist, free movement requires states “to let in people you do not necessarily particularly want…that is the nature of the game” (Interview 2, December 2014).
At the same time, Eurosceptic sentiments increased in Britain. A public appeal was made by Mark Pritchard, a Conservative backbencher, to Cameron to hold an EU referendum claiming “bail-out fatigue” was undermining political support in the Conservative party for an economic crisis that was “self-inflicted” (The Telegraph, September 2011a). A petition of 100,000 signatures from the public as well as MPs and MEPs from within both the Conservative and Labour parties called for a referendum on EU membership (BBC News, September 2011a). However, the motion was defeated in a vote when debated in the House of Commons (The Guardian, October 2011). This vote incited one of the largest Conservative revolts in political history (The Telegraph, October 2011).
Ultimately, three independent and interdependent tensions set the stage for an unprecedented debate over the (in)flexibility of EU free movement. Namely, British public concern over the number of EU nationals in Britain; the British politicians concerns with inactive EU nationals’ access to welfare benefits and EU membership; and an unyielding EU.
83 See Baumbast case (C413/99) (Europa: EUR-Lexa) which provided the legal grounds for EU nationals
173 Respectively, national social welfare policy’s response to the crisis issue was to be both driven and mediated by national politics, EU law, and the politics of the rest of the twenty-seven member states.