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
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
