Immigration, talk of race riots and why ministers can't claim they haven't been warned, by STEPHEN GLOVER



Anyone who relies on the BBC for news will probably be unaware that earlier this week a well-known politician uttered some of the most extraordinary remarks about immigration that have been made by a national figure in living memory.

But the politician who warned that ‘tensions’ between local people and Roma migrants could escalate into rioting unless action is taken was not from the far-Right, Ukip or even the Tory Party. No, these comments were made by David Blunkett, a former Labour Home Secretary and a very moderate man.

Ironically, in view of the fact that the BBC in London has virtually ignored the story, Mr Blunkett had originally confided his fears to BBC Sheffield, the city where he is an MP. He called on the Roma community in the Page Hall area of Sheffield to change aspects of their ‘behaviour’, such as congregating on the streets on summer evenings and dumping litter. These activities, he said, are ‘aggravating’ local people.



Earlier this week David Blunkett warned that 'tensions' between local people and Roma migrants could escalate into rioting unless action is taken

Mr Blunkett told BBC Sheffield: ‘We have got to be tough and robust in saying to people: “You are not living in a down-trodden village or woodland,” — because many of them don’t live in areas where there are toilets or refuse collection facilities.’

According to the former Home Secretary, the cultural gulf between the host community in Sheffield and the Roma one is far greater than that between white Britons and Pakistani immigrants.

And he derided official figures that suggest there are fewer than 50,000 Roma in England — citing a recent Salford University study which estimates that there are more than 200,000. The Government, he said, is ‘burying their head in the sand’.

If a Right-wing politician or newspaper had spoken in such terms, there would have been uproar, and opprobrium from many on the Left. Yet there has been silence. As a Labour MP, Mr Blunkett is allowed — just — to say things which a person on the Right would not be.

After all, given the murder of perhaps 200,000 Roma by the Nazis (the figure is contested), and their history as a persecuted people, any politician who suggests that they should do more to conform to local customs risks some pretty serious criticism.

But despite his evocative language, I am sure Mr Blunkett is in no sense a racist, and that he accurately describes the situation in the Page Hall area of Sheffield. Unlike many MPs, he is close to his constituents and their fears. He senses trouble and wants the Government to wake up before it is too late.

According to former Home Secretary Blunkett, the cultural gulf between the host community in Sheffield and the Roma one is far greater than that between white Britons and Pakistani immigrants

The irony is that Mr Blunkett is himself as responsible as anyone for the large number of Roma and other immigrants who have come from Eastern Europe in recent years. He was Home Secretary in 2004 when the Labour Government lifted controls on Eastern European migrants — one of the very few countries in the EU to do so.

At the time, Whitehall officials estimated that between 5,000 and 13,000 migrants would come to Britain every year. The total over nearly a decade was more than one million. These included many Roma from Slovakia, who now make up a large number of the Roma population in Britain.

Jack Straw — Mr Blunkett’s predecessor as Labour Home Secretary — has just admitted that it was a ‘spectacular mistake’ for Britain to throw open its doors in this way when most other European Union countries reserved their right to retain controls for a further seven years.

In other words, Mr Straw accepts, as Mr Blunkett appears also to do, that too many migrants — significantly more than half of them Poles — came here too quickly. Of course, many of them have made an enormous, sometimes indispensable, contribution to British life, but there have also been tensions of the sort Mr Blunkett so graphically describes.

Is history about to repeat itself? From January 1, 2014, Britain will lift all restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians coming here, as it is required to do under EU law. People from these countries will be free to work in Britain, and to claim benefits, on virtually the same terms as British citizens.

No one knows how many will come. The Government was once thought to have an estimate of probable numbers, but it turns out it doesn’t. The pressure group Migrationwatch, whose predictions are generally accurate, thinks that between 30,000 and 70,000 Romanians and Bulgarians will come here every year for the next five years, and suggests an annual central estimate of 50,000.

Not all of these will be Roma. In fact, a minority will almost certainly be, since there are only just over 600,000 Roma in Romania out of a population of some 21 million, and about 370,000 Roma in Bulgaria out of a population of nearly eight million.

Jack Straw - Blunkett's predecessor as Labour Home Secretary - said it was a 'spectacular mistake' for Britain to throw open its doors when most other EU countries reserved their right to retain controls

On the other hand, is seems likely that, since Roma are among the poorest people in Romania and Bulgaria, they will comprise a larger proportion of migrants from these two countries than they represent as a share of their respective populations.

Messrs Blunkett and Straw presided over unprecedentedly rapid immigration. They seemed relaxed about it — particularly Mr Straw — at a time when this newspaper certainly was not. Now they have effectively recanted and Mr Blunkett has invoked the possibility of race riots.

The Government must listen. It has taken the view that it is required by the EU to open our borders to Romanians and Bulgarians, and there is nothing it can do about it. I sense that, to borrow Mr Blunkett’s phrase, it is burying its head in the sand and simply hoping that not too many people will come.

David Cameron's promise to bring down net migration to less than 100,000 a year by the next election in 2015 seems likely to be blown to smithereens

But what if they do? What happens if, drawn to Britain’s growing economy, which after years of recession looks the most buoyant in Europe, not just 50,000 migrants arrive from these countries every year, but even more?

Figures released yesterday show over the past year an extra 23,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have been working in Britain, a jump of nearly 21 per cent, and a larger increase than from any other country. And this has happened even before controls have been lifted.

At the very least, David Cameron’s promise to bring down net migration to less than 100,000 a year by the next election in 2015 seems likely to be blown to smithereens. The Government’s reduction in net migration from 250,000 to 176,000 a year will probably go into reverse.

But this is not just about statistics. An annual influx of 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians would not be easy to accommodate. A larger number could lead to the kind of social breakdown which Mr Blunkett fears.

In that case, the only course for the Government would be to defy European Union law and restrict the number of migrants from these two countries. If it did so, it would be taken to the European Court, but that would almost certainly not happen until after the election.

Sticking your head in the sand is no substitute for a policy. My prediction is that, in 12 months’ time, this will be so big an issue than even the BBC will have to address it.