The British people want controlled immigration – and that’s what the Conservatives will deliver.
In the last Government I worked for Theresa May in the Home Office and I know how important it is to get this issue right. I welcome the fact that we accept the brightest and the best and have long been a safe haven for genuine asylum seekers. But it is clear from my time as a local MP that people want the UK to have greater control on immigration, it's effects and its consequences. And this is a view increasingly shared in the other Northern European countries.
That’s why we have a plan to remove the financial incentives that attract migrants to Britain, with changes to welfare an absolute requirement in our renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU.
Our plan will mean that in future EU workers will:
- Not get in-work benefits until they’ve been in Britain for four years
- Not get social housing until they’ve been here for four years
- Not get child benefits and tax credits for children living elsewhere in Europe, no matter how long they’ve paid taxes here
EU jobseekers will also not be supported by British taxpayers and will have to leave if they aren’t in a job within six months.
This plan will deliver the toughest system on welfare for EU migrants in Europe.
We’ll renegotiate to reform the EU and Britain’s relationship with it, with the issue of free movement a key part of that. Then we will put that reformed relationship to the people in a referendum. But if our concerns fall on deaf ears in Europe, we’re ruling nothing out.
Labour won’t renegotiate and won’t give you a referendum. If you want renegotiation and a referendum, there’s only one way to get them: by voting Conservative at the next election.
