LONDON: Britain could bring in tough new controls on immigration from the EU without actually having to leave the bloc, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday.
Concerns over the impact of high levels of immigration on public services and housing were cited as a factor by many who voted to leave the EU in last year’s referendum.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government has said free movement of EU citizens coming to Britain must end.
Many Brexit supporters blame Blair’s government, which allowed citizens of former communist states to settle immediately in Britain despite a long transition period implemented by other EU countries, for a big influx of EU migrants from 2004.
“There is no diversion possible from Brexit without addressing the grievances that gave rise to it. Paradoxically, we have to respect the referendum vote to change it,” Blair, who has said Brexit can and should be stopped, wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper.
“We can curtail the things that people feel are damaging about European immigration, both by domestic policy change and by agreeing change within Europe to the freedom of movement principle,” added Blair, who led a Labour government for a decade from 1997.
Asked about Blair’s proposals, Defense Minister Michael Fallon said the government had to get on with delivering Brexit.
“The country has taken its decision, we are leaving the EU now and that means freedom of movement has to end ... there have got to be restrictions on those coming here,” he told BBC Television.
A leaked government document last week said Britain was considering measures to restrict immigration for all but the highest-skilled EU workers, plans some companies called alarming.
A paper published on Sunday by Blair’s Institute for Global Change said the government could take steps including registering EU migrants when they arrive to keep track of whether they meet EU rules about finding work.
EU migrants could also be forced to show evidence of a job offer before being allowed to enter Britain, and those without permission to reside could be banned from renting, opening a bank account or accessing welfare benefits, it said.
The paper also proposes seeking an “emergency brake” to implement temporary controls on migration when services are stretched — a strengthened version of a deal offered to former Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of the referendum.
UK does not need Brexit to curb EU immigration, says Blair
UK does not need Brexit to curb EU immigration, says Blair
Pope names veteran Vatican diplomat as ambassador to the US to manage relations with Trump
- Italian Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, 68, is currently the Holy See’s ambassador to the UN
- He replaces French-born Cardinal Christophe Pierre
ROME: Pope Leo XIV on Saturday named a veteran Vatican diplomat as his new ambassador to the United States to manage one of the Holy See’s most important bilateral relationships at a crucial time, with ties strained over the Trump administration’s war in Iran and immigration crackdown.
Italian Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, 68, is currently the Holy See’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He replaces French-born Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who at age 80 is retiring as apostolic nuncio in Washington.
Caccia served as the Holy See’s ambassador to Lebanon and the Philippines before being posted to the UN in 2019. Ordained a priest in Milan in 1983, Caccia later served as “assessor” in the Vatican secretariat of state, a key administrative post in the Holy See’s most important office.
He inherits a complicated and consequential dossier on both the US church and state fronts at a time of global turmoil.
Pierre’s tenure as ambassador was notable for clear signs of friction between the leadership of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which tends to skew conservative, and the more progressive priorities of Pope Francis’ pontificate.
The relationship with the US and its church is crucial for the Holy See, not least because US Catholics are the most generous donors to the Holy See’s coffers.
Leo, history’s first US-born pope, is well aware of the dynamic, having served as Francis’ point man on bishop nominations for two years before his 2025 election. Leo has emphasized a message of pacification and unity in the church.
The first Trump administration clashed with Francis especially on migration, and that tension has continued in Leo’s pontificate and the second Trump term. Leo has repeatedly insisted that the Trump administration respect the human dignity of migrants, while acknowledging its right to its borders.
More recently, Leo has expressed “profound concern” about the US-Israeli war in Iran and urged both sides to “stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss.”
In comments last Sunday, Leo called for the resumption of diplomacy. Weapons, he said, only sow “destruction, pain and death.”
In a major foreign policy speech earlier this year, Leo also made clear he opposed the US aggressive use of military power, in an apparent reference to Washington’s incursion in Venezuela and threats to take Greenland. He denounced how nations were using force to assert their dominion worldwide and “completely undermine” peace and the post-World War II international legal order.
Caccia said in a statement Saturday he was humbled by Leo’s appointment and faith in naming him ambassador to his native country.
“I receive this mission with both joy and a sense of trepidation,” according to a statement reported by Vatican News. He said his was a mission “at the service of communion and peace,” recalling that this year marks the 250th anniversary of the US independence.
The current president of the US conference, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, welcomed Caccia’s appointment and offered the US hierarchy’s “warmest welcome and our prayerful support.”
The Holy See has a tradition of diplomatic neutrality, though Leo has spoken out strongly against the humanitarian toll of Israel’s military action in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
