Theresa May threw down the gauntlet to David Cameron over Europe’s free-movement rules yesterday by demanding that EU migrants should be barred from coming to Britain unless they have a job.

In a significant intervention, the Home Secretary said Mr Cameron’s pledge to reduce net immigration to the ‘tens of thousands’ could not be met while jobless EU migrants were free to come here.

And Mrs May’s plans received immediate support from London Mayor Boris Johnson, who described her comments as ‘brave’.

Demand: Theresa May said EU migrants should be banned from Britain unless they have a job lined up

Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, he said: ‘The Home Secretary has bravely proposed a fundamental reform to the EU.

‘I believe many people in this country would support such a reform, though the devil, as ever, would be in the detail.’

Figures last week showed annual net migration to Britain had risen to a record 330,000, much of it driven by immigrants from the EU.

Mr Cameron hopes to address the issue during his renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership, but he has pledged to ‘respect the principle of free movement’.

Bullish: The Home Secretary, pictured at an EU security summit in Paris yesterday, said the principle of free movement within the EU has allowed jobless citizens to move countries in search of work and benefits

Mrs May said he should go further to restore Britain’s ability to control its borders.

‘When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits,’ she said. ‘Yet last year, four out of ten EU migrants – 63,000 people – came here with no definite job whatsoever.

‘If we want to control immigration – and bring it down to the tens of thousands – we must take some big decisions, face down powerful interests and reinstate the original principle underlying free movement within the EU.’ Mrs May also signalled that she would lead a cross-Whitehall crackdown this autumn to kick out foreign students at the end of their courses unless they have graduate-level jobs to go to.

She said the EU’s ‘broken’ immigration system has also worsened the wider migrant crisis gripping the whole of Europe, and that it is time for EU leaders to ‘consider the consequences of uncontrolled migration on wages, jobs and social cohesion of the destination nations; on the economies and societies of the rest; and on the lives and welfare of those who seek to come here’.

‘The events of this summer have shown that the most tragic consequences of a broken European migration system have been borne by those at risk of exploitation,’ she said in an article in The Sunday Times.

Last night, the Home Secretary joined French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve and German minister Thomas de Maiziere in demanding emergency talks on the crisis within two weeks. In a joint statement, the three politicians said: ‘Immediate action has to be taken to face the challenge in managing the migratory flows.’

They emphasised the need to establish so-called “hot spots” to register and fingerprint migrants and to identify those in clear need of international protection in Greece and Italy – ‘as soon as possible and at the latest by the end of the year’.

The issue of immigration within the EU is likely to prove much harder for Britain, France and Germany to agree on.

'PERMANENT EMERGENCY' IN SICILY AS 4,000 ARRIVE FROM BOATS IN 2 DAYS Aid workers in Sicily warned the crisis had become a ‘permanent emergency’ as more than 4,000 migrants arrived in two days. The Italian coastguard brought 683 migrants rescued from boats to Messina on Saturday. Authorities said it was also carrying the bodies of two girls found dead on the smuggler ships. Officials said they received a call on Friday night alerting them to a boat with 400 on board heading to Europe from Libya, but the coastguard found several boats carrying hundreds more. A day earlier 40 bodies were found inside a half-sunk fishing boat with up to 160 others discovered floating nearby. Red Cross workers said 4,000 migrants had been brought to shore on Thursday and Friday. One said the situation was a ‘permanent emergency’, with 200,000 arriving in Italy from January to July. Yesterday a boat carrying migrants sank off Libya with at least seven bodies washed up on shore at Khoms, east of capital Tripoli, Libya’s Red Crescent said. It comes days after a boat carrying 400 foundered near Libya’s western port of Zuwara. MP Charlotte Leslie, in Sicily with a group of Tory politicians carrying out humanitarian work, said the trafficking needed to be stopped ‘at its source’. JOHN STEVENS, IN MESSINA, SICILY, FOR THE DAILY MAIL Advertisement

Time for action: She added that the events of this summer, which has seen hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees risking their lives to reach Europe, should act as 'wake-up call' to EU leaders

Germany has made clear that there should be no compromise on the founding principle of free movement in Britain’s renegotiation.

However, Mrs May suggested she wants a debate with Government on the issue at the very least. She said the current scale of immigration into Britain was ‘simply unsustainable’.

Government sources tried to play down suggestions of a ‘rift’ with Mr Cameron over the issue, pointing out that last year he voiced concerns about the ability of jobless EU migrants to come to Britain.

John Cridland, director-general of the CBI, criticised Mrs May’s call last night, saying: ‘We’d be concerned if EU workers had to be hired for a job before coming to the UK, as this would cause issues for firms without the capacity to advertise and recruit across the whole of Europe.’

Mr Cameron travels to Spain and Portugal this week for talks over Britain’s EU relationship.