Giving arrivals from Turkey visa-free entry to Europe would be like ‘storing gasoline next to the fire’, says Sir Richard Dearlove

A former head of MI6 has said the European Union offering visa-free access to millions of Turks is like “storing gasoline next to the fire” as he warns of a “sea change” in continental politics.



Speaking on the BBC’s World on the Move day of migration coverage, Sir Richard Dearlove set out his concerns and thoughts.

He told the programme that “shutting the door on migration is not an option” and that the number of immigrants coming to Europe over the next five years could run into millions.

“For the EU, however, to offer visa-free access to 75 million Turks to stem the flow of migrants across the Aegean seems perverse, like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish,” he said.

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With 1.6 million migrants arriving in Europe in 2015, he warned that once established within the EU the new arrivals would have freedom of movement across the 28 member countries.

He said their arrival on the continent had far-reaching social and political consequences. “The geopolitical impact is set to reshape Europe’s political landscape as those citizens who feel, rationally or not, that their interests and cultural identity are threatened assert their influence,” said Dearlove. “This has already happened in Austria with the resurgence of the defunct Freedom party. Other extreme right populist parties in other European countries will follow.”

He said the rise of extremist populist rightwing movements suggested voters were disillusioned at the failure to control the number of immigrants. He added that Europe’s current migration crisis was “more serious” than that of postwar 1945 because it was “global in nature”.

The former spymaster said the impact of mass migration was “eating away at the willingness of EU states to act together”. He said this was rendering the EU “impotent in the face of the most serious social and humanitarian problem” it had yet faced.

Dearlove added: “Europe’s leading politicians, each caught up with their own problems, show little common determination to break out of this cycle of deterioration.”

And he said the failure to meet the challenge of migration by the “present configuration of 28 vastly differing national interests” suggested it may have outlived its historical role.

He added: “The steady rise of extremist populist rightwing movements in many European states suggests that many voters share this sense of disillusionment. The failure to control inward migration is the common denominator which explains their growth.

“Their rejection of the postwar European dream may not yet be of sufficient strength to break the EU apart and Europe’s conventional parties may yet be able to hold the line if improved control of migration can be achieved.

“However if a politician like Marine le Pen of the Front National can command the support of one in four, perhaps even one in three, French voters this does represent a sea change in the continent’s politics.”