Ed Balls suggests EU immigration curb to deal with UKIP threat

Ed Balls has made the strongest suggestion yet that Labour would put an end to free movement within the EU if we were to win next year’s election. In an interview with The Telegraph today, he said that by doing so we would “show we understand the concerns of some Labour voters who voted UKIP in the European elections.”

It emerged last week that advisers to Ed Miliband believe that if UKIP are able to draw in 9% of votes or more in the general election, they will have taken away enough support from the Conservatives to provide a Labour victory. However, Balls made it clear he was deeply concerned with this kind of thinking, saying: “I do not feel comfortable about UKIP at nine per cent in the polls in the medium or long term.”

Despite saying that he did not want an “ever-closer union if it means a European state with a flag and an anthem” (both of which the EU has already), he claimed that his concerns were about keeping a strong position for the UK in Europe:

“In the short term, we have got to show we understand the concerns of some Labour voters who voted Ukip in the European elections. And, in the medium term, if we think we can ignore those issues, we will end up undermining Britain’s place in Europe.”

Balls laid down a series of circumstances where he believed that free movement within the EU was not in the national interest:

“We have lots of rules that fetter movement. We think you should toughen up those rules. You shouldn’t be free to work in Britain and send back tax credits. You shouldn’t be free to come to Britain and be unemployed. You shouldn’t be free to come to Britain as soon as your country joins the EU. There will be people who say … that freedom of movement is good for the economy. But that is not the consensus of the vast majority … who don’t say either [that we should] shut the borders.

“What I want is fair movement not free movement. It needs to be fair to people who come and work here, and fair to people in this country.”

Despite his tone, it is not clear how much of this is Party policy and how much is Ed Balls’ personal views. Despite several speeches and interviews on the topic earlier in the year, Ed Miliband’s focus seemed to be largely on limiting immigration from outside the EU.

This is not the first time Ed Balls has spoken out on the issue – upon launching his leadership bid in 2010 he wrote an article for the Guardian in which he said that the last Labour Government had been wrong to allow so many eastern Europeans into Britain. More recently, 7 Labour MPs wrote an open letter calling for an end to EU free movement in the wake of UKIP’s victory in the European elections, although a LabourList survey found that 65% of our readers remain in favour.