Prime Minister David Cameron has said the Government will do “everything necessary” to restore order following the third night of violence and looting across London and other cities.
The Prime Minister has condemned the “sickening” scenes that have been witnessed and called the violence “criminality – pure and simple” which needs to be confronted and defeated.
Mr Cameron praised the great bravery shown by police and extended huge sympathy to those affected.
Following a meeting of COBR(A), the emergency planning committee, Mr Cameron announced that all police leave has been cancelled and tonight there will be 16,000 police on the streets with reinforcements from across the country.
There have been 450 arrests over the last three days and the PM said he was determined that justice will be done and those involved will “feel the full force of the law”.
“We will make sure that court procedures and processes are speeded up and people should expect to see more, many more arrests in the days to come. I am determined, the government is determined that justice will be done and these people will see the consequences of their actions.
“And I have this very clear message to those people who are responsible for this wrongdoing and criminality: you will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishment. And to these people I would say this: you are not only wrecking the lives of others, you’re not only wrecking your own communities; you are potentially wrecking your own life too.”
Mr Cameron also announced that Parliament will be recalled on Thursday for one day to discuss the developments.
Posted on January 8, 2011 by Jane Jamison| 1 Comment
Forget about so-called “moderate” Muslims, there are none. If Muslims are attending mosques and reading the Koran, THIS is what they are hearing and this is what they believe, whether or not they have acted upon it yet. Count on it or be a PC fool. Hear it, see it. This is from just a few weeks ago, at a conference in the U.K.
Hat tip: BareNakedIslam and MEMRI TV:
British Salafi ‘Abu Mounisa’: “We Should Attack David Cameron and the Western System, and Replace Them with Islam….”
“We Need to Behead Capitalism From Its Roots, Take it, Kill it….”
The following are excerpts from a lecture delivered by British Salafi Abu Mounisa, in the Islamic Awakening Conference, held on December 15, 2010 and posted on the Internet. The conference, first planned to take place on November 27, 2010, but later cancelled by U.K. authorities, included 7 Muslim preachers who all studied for a lengthy time with radical Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad. Abu Mounisa’s lecture during the Islamic Awakening Conference was titled “Dawah and CGFE” (Call for Islam and Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil).
Our Da’wa [Call for Islam] Should be the Da’wa that Attacks Their System, and We Replace It with Islam”
Abu Mounisa: “When we talk about da’wa [call for Islam], don’t ever think, my brothers and sisters, that our da’wa is only to address a few people on the streets, and call them to Islam. Our da’wa should be the da’wa that attacks their system, and we replace it with Islam. That’s what we need to do, my dear brothers, we need to call the whole of society to Islam. We’re not just calling one sister or one brother to follow the religion of Allah. We want the whole society to bow down to Allah. We don’t want only one sister to wear the khimar [veil] and jilbab [cloak]. We want the whole society to wear the khimar and jilbab. We don’t want only our brothers and sisters to make sujud [bow down] to Allah. We want the whole society to make sujud to Allah. This is the da’wa of the Prophet Muhammad. This is our da’wa, my dear brothers and sisters. […]
“If you carry your da’wa stall, and you stand there, just inviting people to Islam, like [cleric] Zakir Naik [does], do you think that is going to change society? Without attacking the law and order? No, my dear brothers, there is no way it is going to change society. It’s impossible that society will change. You need to provoke society for society to be changed.
“Also, my dear brothers, what we need to understand is that when the Prophet Muhammad was inside Mecca, there were 360 idols in Mecca at that time. Today, people don’t worship physical idols. Today, people worship the ideas of democracy, freedom, and capitalism. This is what the people are worshipping today. The woman says: I am free to have an abortion. The man says: I am free to go for sexual promiscuity. Do you see what I mean? This is the reality of today.”
“I have Come to Destroy Your Gods”
“Who allows that freedom? Who allows that democracy? Who allows these false gods to exist? The government, the law and order, they are the ones that allow it. When the [people] said to the Prophet Muhammad: Why don’t you add your god amongst our gods? Just one more, just add it in. He said: No way! […]
“He said: Do you think I am going to mix my God with your gods? I’m never mixing my God with your gods. It’s impossible for me to mix my gods [sic] with your gods, and I would never do so. I believe Allah is self-sufficient. He doesn’t need your gods. I have come to destroy your gods. When Allah gave the Prophet Muhammad victory inside Mecca, he went to the Kaaba and destroyed all 360 gods inside it. But do you know what? He never stopped there. Do you know what he did? He went to the areas of [the idols] Lat, Uzzat, and Manat… He went inside these areas, and he asked the people: Where is Uzzat, where is Manat? He went and destroyed them, killed them, chopped their heads off, beheaded them. That is why, my dear brothers, we need to behead democracy from its roots.
“We need to behead capitalism from its roots, take it, kill it from its roots. That is what we need to do. We should hate it so much, my dear brothers, that every day, we should attack their system. Every day. Just like the Prophet Muhammad did. […]
“This is how we should feel. This is how we should believe. We should have the zeal in our hearts, for the sake of Allah, to destroy all their system and replace it with Islam.” […]
Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Hit a Woman Who was Dressed Immodestly “but Today We Can’t Go Around Slapping Every Woman in the Street”
“Who allows alcohol in the first place? The law and order. So we need to address the law and order. We need to attack the law and order. A man during the time of the Prophet Muhammad… Sorry, I apologize. One time, Omar Ibn Al-Khattabsaw some woman, and she was dressed inappropriately. What Muhammad did… No, I’m sorry what Omar Ibn Al-Khattab did… He went up to her, and he hit her. He hit her. He said to her: ‘How dare you walk in the streets of Al-Madina, which belong to the Prophet Muhammad, dressed the way you are dressed?’ She turned around and said to him: ‘Who the hell are you to tell me to dress like this?!’ Do you know what he said? ‘I am the Emir of the Believers.’ But today, we can’t go around slapping every woman in the street. We cannot do that. It is not allowed for us to do that.
“So what we need to do is to address the munkar [evil]. We need to turn around and attack society. By removing the roots of the problem, you remove the issue.But if you just deal with the branches, grab a couple of branches here, a couple of branches there, it’s not going to solve the problem. It would never solve the problem. We need to attack the root of the problem, which is the man-made law, the man-made system, which we live under today. Do you understand, brothers? That is what we need to do.
We cannot just sit down until our brothers say: Brother, what you are doing is forbidden. Sister, your scarf is completely forbidden, a big hump on the head. You can’t do it like this. What you need to is tell the sister that her hump is wrong. You need to tell the brother he is wrong. Plus you need to command good and forbid evil, and make the society bow down to Allah.
That is what we need to do, my dear brothers. We need to attack the leaders. We need to turn around and attack, what’s it? Daoud Kamroon… Cameron. He calls him Daoud Kamroon. We need to attack him. We need to say: Your laws are oppressive. We need to deal with those laws, and replace them with Islam. ‘Whoever rejects the Taghout and believes in Allah…’ So we would destroy his system and replace it with Islam. That is what we need to do.” […]
Clashes broke out between police and rioters in Enfield, north London, tonight, in a second night of violence in the capital.
Dozens of riot police officers, some with dogs and batons, charged at a group of more than 100 youths after the windows of dozens of shops were smashed.
Police were called to the town centre at around 6:30pm after youths attacked police cars, while high street shops came under attack from bricks and slabs of concrete, according to witness reports.
Running battles between the youths and police continued through the evening, as bricks were hurled at police vans attempting to lockdown the area.
Pictures posted on the social networking site Twitter showed an HMV store which appeared to have been looted and a number of police vans parked outside a Tesco, which had earlier been the scene of some scuffles.
The Metropolitan police said it had extra resources out across London following the troubles in Tottenham on Saturday night, which saw buildings, police cars and a bus burnt out in the high road, resulting in 55 arrests.
Riots broke out after protests over the death of Mark Duggan, who was shot by police, turned violent.
Several arrests have been made after shops were looted, according to Scotland Yard.
Many shopkeepers in Enfield closed early, fearing a repeat of yesterday’s violence.
Ben MacDonald, who lives in Tottenham, said as he dropped a friend in Enfield earlier today he saw that the HMV and T Mobile shops had been vandalised by a group of teenagers.
He said: “A police car turned up trying to deter them, but instead they turned on the police car, jumped on the roof and absolutely trashed it.”
Local resident and freelance journalist, Chris January, told theTelegraph: “It’s a tinderbox at the moment, there’s 300 youths aged between 12-18 waiting by the station masked up. We’re just waiting for it to kick off. There’s riot police everyone and they’ve closed the station.”
Nick de Bois, Conservative MP for Enfield North, said the disorder in Enfield was encouraged via social media websites:
“There seems to have been a very well organised campaign over social media to try to engineer trouble here in Enfield. It has almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he told LBC radio.
“There is no element of injustice that they are here for. They are here quite simply to cause trouble, to hurt local businesses and shops. This is nothing more than illegal criminal behaviour and I just hope that if the police conclude their investigation, that they do make arrests and those that are guilty receive a serious punishment from the courts.”
Torture policy of MI5 and MI6 outlined in secret document – barrister’s opinion together with original article from The Guardian below:
No trade-off on torture
Now that the secret government policy on overseas torture is laid bare, it is even more imperative that the coalition clean house
Eric Metcalfe
Guantánamo military prison, where 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were used. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
Would you risk someone being waterboarded in a foreign country for a week if you thought it might save 10 British lives? What if you thought it might save only one life, but you were not really sure? What would that be worth? Waterboarding for a day? The secret government policy uncovered in Ian Cobain’s story on Thursday does not set things out in such crude terms, but it is the kind of grotesque utilitarian calculus that is invited by its bland references to “balancing the risk of mistreatment” against “operational imperatives”.
Torture, according to the policy, was something the previous government would never knowingly condone or be complicit in. But when it came to situations in which the government did not know for certain, or did not especially want to, all bets were, apparently, off.
The revelation of the policy, in force until 2010, does not so much shock as confirm what many people had guessed: that the previous government had been prepared to run the risk that its co-operation with foreign intelligence agencies might – in certain, unspecified circumstances – result in people overseas being tortured.
The policy restated, of course, the official position: MI5 and MI6 “do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment” and “will not carry out any action which it is known will result” in such ill-treatment. The more difficult question is what was happening before 2010 in the many cases that didn’t involve such perfect knowledge, ie the real world.
Some things we do know. We know, for instance, that our intelligence services have over the past decade co-operated with a great many countries known to use torture: Jordan, Pakistan and Algeria, to name but a few. The evidence that these countries use torture has long been a matter of public record, amply documented by reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the US state department.
But it turns out knowledge is a tricky thing. In 2005, the then head of MI5 gave a witness statement in support of the government’s case before the House of Lords, from which it was clear that MI5 did not care to ask its foreign partners if particular information it received had been obtained using torture. Apparently it feared giving offence and thereby depriving the UK of valuable intelligence. As Lord Bingham noted in his dissenting opinion, “the foreign torturer does not boast of his trade”, and MI5 was content to turn a blind eye in order to keep the information coming in.
The cases in which British officials have been implicated in torture abroad are not just those involving evidence received by fax, however, where knowledge of interrogation techniques is easy enough to deny. In several cases, agents of MI5 and MI6 went to detention centres in places such as Pakistan, stood face to face with the victim of torture, asking questions with the torturers presumably nearby. It beggars belief to suppose that trained intelligence officials were unaware of the circumstances in which suspects were detained.
No doubt there are many qualities that go into making a good MI5 agent but naivety is not one of them. In any event, the previous government’s policy reveals that ministers were prepared to run the risk that torture might be used if the gains to the UK were acceptable enough: in other words, a ghoulish, foolish trade-off between torture and intelligence.
Will the coalition clean house as it promised? Labour’s policy accepted that British officials overseas were bound by our criminal law but not, apparently, our human rights standards. Sadly, the coalition government seems as unwilling as Labour in this regard, something borne out by itsrefusal to comply with article 3 of the European convention on human rights when setting up the Detainee Inquiry. Worst of all, the coalition has given itself the final say on what can and cannot be made public by the inquiry. The irony here is that, but for Thursday’s leak, Labour’s ruinous policy might never have seen the light of day.
Eric Metcalfe is a barrister and the director of human rights policy at Justice
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/aug/05/no-trade-off-on-torture, 5 August 2011
Original article by Ian Cobain:
UK’s secret policy on torture revealed
Exclusive: Document shows intelligence officers instructed to weigh importance of information sought against pain inflicted
A number of men said they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
A top-secret document revealing how MI6 and MI5 officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian.
The interrogation policy – details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK’s role in torture and rendition – instructed senior intelligence officers toweigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade.
A copy of the secret policy showed senior intelligence officers and ministers feared the British public could be at greater risk of a terrorist attack if Islamists became aware of its existence.
One section states: “If the possibility exists that information will be or has been obtained through the mistreatment of detainees, the negative consequences may include any potential adverse effects on national security if the fact of the agency seeking or accepting information in those circumstances were to be publicly revealed.
“For instance, it is possible that in some circumstances such a revelation could result in further radicalisation, leading to an increase in the threat from terrorism.”
The policy adds that such a disclosure “could result in damage to the reputation of the agencies”, and that this could undermine their effectiveness.
The fact that the interrogation policy document and other similar papers may not be made public during the inquiry into British complicity in torture and rendition has led to human rights groups and lawyers refusing to give evidence or attend any meetings with the inquiry team because it does not have “credibility or transparency”.
The decision by 10 groups – including Liberty, Reprieve and Amnesty International – follows the publication of the inquiry’s protocols, which show the final decision on whether material uncovered by the inquiry, led by Sir Peter Gibson, can be made public will rest with the cabinet secretary.
The inquiry will begin after a police investigation into torture allegations has been completed.
Some have criticised the appointment of Gibson, a retired judge, to head the inquiry because he previously served as the intelligence services commissioner, overseeing government ministers’ use of a controversial power that permits them to “disapply” UK criminal and civil law in order to offer a degree of protection to British intelligence officers committing crimes overseas. The government denies there is a conflict of interest.
The protocols also stated that former detainees and their lawyers will not be able to question intelligence officials and that all evidence from current or former members of the security and intelligence agencies, below the level of head, will be heard in private.
The document seen by the Guardian shows how the secret interrogation policy operated until it was rewritten on the orders of the coalition government last July.
It also:
• Acknowledged that MI5 and MI6 officers could be in breach of both UK and international law by asking for information from prisoners held by overseas agencies known to use torture.
• Explained the need to obtain political cover for any potentially criminal act by consulting ministers beforehand.
The secret interrogation policy was first passed to MI5 and MI6 officers inAfghanistan in January 2002 to enable them to continue questioning prisoners whom they knew were being mistreated by members of the US military.
It was amended slightly later that year before being rewritten and expanded in 2004 after it became apparent that a significant number of British Muslims, radicalised by the invasion of Iraq, were planning attacks against the UK.
The policy was amended again in July 2006 during an investigation of a suspected plot to bring down airliners over the Atlantic.
Entitled “Agency policy on liaison with overseas security and intelligence services in relation to detainees who may be subject to mistreatment”, it was given to intelligence officers handing over questions to be put to detainees.
Separate policy documents were issued for related matters, including intelligence officers conducting face-to-face interrogations.
The document set out the international and domestic law on torture, and explained that MI5 and MI6 do not “participate in, encourage or condone” either torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
Intelligence officers were instructed not to carry out any action “which it is known” would result in torture. However, they could proceed when they foresaw “a real possibility their actions will result in an individual’s mistreatment” as long as they first sought assurances from the overseas agency.
Even when such assurances were judged to be worthless, officers could be given permission to proceed despite the real possibility that they would committing a crime and that a prisoner or prisoners would be tortured.
“When, not withstanding any caveats or prior assurances, there is still considered to be a real possibility of mistreatment and therefore there is considered to be a risk that the agencies’ actions could be judged to be unlawful, the actions may not be taken without authority at a senior level. In some cases, ministers may need to be consulted,” the document said.
In deciding whether to give permission, senior MI5 and MI6 management “will balance the risk of mistreatment and the risk that the officer’s actions could be judged to be unlawful against the need for the proposed action”.
At this point, “the operational imperative for the proposed action, such as if the action involves passing or obtaining life-saving intelligence” would be weighed against “the level of mistreatment anticipated and how likely those consequences are”.
Ministers may be consulted over “particularly difficult cases”, with the process of consulting being “designed to ensure that appropriate visibility and consideration of the risk of unlawful actions takes place”. All such operations must remain completely secret or they could put UK interests and British lives at risk.
Disclosure of the contents of the document appears to help explain the high degree of sensitivity shown by ministers and former ministers after the Guardianbecame aware of its existence two years ago.
Tony Blairevaded a series of questions over the role he played in authorising changes to the instructions in 2004, while the former home secretary David Blunkett maintained it was potentially libellous even to ask him questions about the matter.
As foreign secretary, David Milibandtold MPs the secret policy could never be made public as “nothing we publish must give succour to our enemies”.
Blair, Blunkett and the former foreign secretary Jack Straw also declined to say whether or not they were aware that the instructions had led to a number of people being tortured.
The head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, said that, in the post 9/11 world, his officers would be derelict in their duty if they did not work with intelligence agencies in countries with poor human rights records, while his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Sawers, spoke of the “real, constant, operational dilemmas” involved in such relationships.
Others, however, are questioning whether – in the words of Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, “Tony Blair’s government was guilty of developing something close to a criminal policy”.
The Intelligence and Security Committee, the group of parliamentarians appointed by the prime minister to assist with the oversight of the UK’s intelligence agencies, is known to have examined the document while sitting in secret, but it is unclear what – if any – suggestions or complaints it made.
Paul Murphy, the Labour MP and former minister who chaired the committee in 2006, declined to answer questions about the matter.
A number of men, mostly British Muslims, have complained that they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured by overseas intelligence officials in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan andGuantánamo Bay. Some are known to have been detained at the suggestion of British intelligence officers.
Others say they were tortured in places such as Egypt, Dubai, Morocco and Syria, while being interrogated on the basis of information that could only have been supplied by the UK.
A number were subsequently convicted of serious terrorism offences or subjected to control orders. Others returned to the UK and, after treatment, resumed their lives.
One is a businessman in Yorkshire, another a software designer living in Berkshire, and a third is a doctor practising on the south coast of England.
Some have brought civil proceedings against the British government, and a number have received compensation in out-of-court settlements, but others remain too scared to take legal action.
Scotland Yard has examined the possibility that one officer from MI5 and a second from MI6 committed criminal offences while extracting information from detainees overseas, and detectives are now conducting what is described as a “wider investigation into other potential criminal conduct”.
A new set of instructions was drafted after last year’s election, published on the orders of David Cameron, on the grounds that the coalition was “determined to resolve the problems of the past” and wished to give “greater clarity about what is and what is not acceptable in the future”.
Human rights groups pointed to what they said were serious loopholes that could permit MI5 and MI6 officers to remain involved in the torture of prisoners overseas.
Last week, the high court heard a challenge to the legality of the new instructions, brought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Judgment is expected later in the year.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/aug/04/uk-allowed-interrogate-tortured-prisoners, 4 August 2011
The Daily Telegraph’s title for the same item:
“We covered up our involvement in torture. Now we must expose it”
Cleveland police chiefs suspended after arrestsChief constable and his deputy suspended following questioning over fraud and corruption allegations
The chief constable of Cleveland police and his deputy have been suspended by their police authority after being arrested by detectives investigating fraud and corruption.
Sean Price, the chief constable, Derek Bonnard, his deputy, and the former force solicitor Caroline Llewellyn, were taken in for questioning in the early hours of Wednesday as part of a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of corrupt practices.
The arrest of the two most senior officers in the force has left Cleveland police in crisis and comes after the resignation three months ago of the chairman of the police authority, which is also under investigation.
Price is also the subject of a separate investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) that he used “undue influence” to get an individual appointed to a position within the force.
Price, Bonnard, and Llewellyn, who recently received £213,379 in a voluntary redundancy payoff, were questioned by detectives at a police station in North Yorkshire on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, corrupt practice and fraud by abuse of position. The criminal inquiry, being run by Warwickshire police with the help of officers from North Yorkshire, is understood to be a major and complex investigation that includes an examination of the awarding of business contracts by the police authority.
As part of the investigation searches were carried out at properties linked to those who were arrested. Shortly after the three were taken in for questioning members of Cleveland police authority – which has previously strongly backed the chief constable – held an extraordinary meeting behind closed doors where they voted to suspend Price and Bonnard.
In a statement a spokesman for the authority said: “Cleveland police authority can confirm that it has been made aware of potential conduct matters involving chief officers of Cleveland police.
“The authority can confirm that two chief officers have been suspended from their posts with Cleveland police while the investigations are being considered. It should be emphasised that suspension is a neutral act and it should not be inferred from the decision to suspend that the potential conduct matters have been proven in respect to the two chief officers concerned.”
The authority added that it had referred the matters to the IPCC.
The inquiry by Warwickshire police began after a review by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary into the way some individuals within Cleveland Police Authority “may have conducted some of its business”.
After the review misconduct issues were passed to the IPCC and the criminal investigation began under the command of Keith Bristow, chief constable of Warwickshire, using North Yorkshire detectives.
A spokesman for Warwickshire police said: “Police officers conducting a criminal investigation into a number of people with current or past associations with Cleveland police authority and the manner in which the authority may have conducted some of its business have arrested three people on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, fraud by abuse of position and corrupt practice.
“Two men and a woman were arrested and have been taken to a police station in North Yorkshire where they will be interviewed.”
Shortly after the Warwickshire investigation began in May the chairman of Cleveland police authority, Dave McLuckie, resigned. He could not be contacted yesterday but has denied any wrongdoing.
The IPCC inquiry into Price is ongoing. It is investigating an allegation which emerged out of the HMIC review, that the chief constable used “undue influence” to get a job for McLuckie’s daughter.
Price has responded to the IPCC inquiry by threatening legal action. “I completely refute the accusation, which I regard as malicious as I took no part in the recruitment process,” he said. “I further believe the allegation is mischievous in seeking to cause comparison with recent events in other forces.
“I want the matter to be cleared up as soon as possible and I am sure that everyone will realise the damage that such an allegation could have on my personal standing and confidence in the force. In addition, I am taking legal advice regarding any action I may take in the future.”
Price, who has been chief constable of the force since 2003, is on a remuneration package of £191,905 this year. The salary includes a payment of £54,421, which the police authority agreed to pay him to stop him being poached by other forces.
Under his watch crime has gone down in the Cleveland force, one of the smallest in the country.
Cleveland police would not comment on the arrests. They referred all inquiries to Warwickshire police.
The IPCC said in a statement: “The IPCC can confirm that it has been informed of developments and would anticipate referrals from the police authority.”
Polish migrant workers in reading job adverts in London: Official predictions that EU enlargement in 2004 would bring an annual net migration of 13,000 were wholly inaccurate. Photograph: Mike Goldwater/Alamy
Home Office must assess impact of Turkish entry into EU to avoid repeat of 2004 influx of eastern European migrants
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Monday 1 August 2011
Home Office ministers need to order an official assessment of the likely scale of legal migration to Britain should Turkey join the European Union, a Commons committee has urged.
The home affairs select committee also says that much more must be done to improve security on Turkey’s borders before it should be allowed to join the EU. The land border with Greece is now the main loophole for irregular migration into Europe with 350 migrants trying to cross it every day in 2010 and more than 75% of trafficked heroin into the EU also flows across its borders.
The MPs’ report says that the available forecasts for the likely flow of Turkish nationals to other European countries should it join the EU range from 500,000 to 4.4 million up until 2030. One estimate by Oxford University suggests that the figure could be as low as 60,000 to 70,000 a year to Europe as a whole.
“Current migration of Turkish nationals to the EU has declined to below 50,000 a year but population trends and the gap in living standards could make easier migration within the EU an attractive option for Turkish citizens,” says the report published on Monday.
“Given the UK’s experience after the 2004 enlargement, when many thousands more migrants arrived than expected, the committee is cautious about allowing Turkish citizens full freedom of movement and supports the government’s commitment to applying ‘effective transitional controls as a matter of course’ for all new member states,” says the report.
The Home Office says that there are about 150,000 Turkish nationals living in Britain at present, with about 500,000 people of Turkish origin living in the country altogether. But Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France all have larger Turkish communities which are more likely to attract a new wave of legal migration.
Current discussions in Brussels assume that Turkey could join the EU in 2020 but no final decisions have been made and there is significant opposition among some member states.
Home Office immigration minister Damian Green, giving evidence to the committee’s inquiry, said it was impossible to make any kind of realistic assessment at the moment on the impact of Turkish accession to the EU on likely migration patterns.
He said that “we don’t know any of the basic facts”, including whether a transitional period under which Britain could restrict the flow of Turkish migrant workers will be put in place. Green also pointed out that Turkey traditionally had much stronger links with Germany than Britain and had an economy which was growing at a faster rate than India, meaning many Turks might well stay at home.
However, the MPs say that, while the Home Office was no doubt wary of attracting criticism for producing inaccurate estimates in the future, they were concerned that no official impact analysis has yet been carried out: “Accordingly we recommend that the Home Office undertakes this piece of work now and updates it as circumstances change.”
Ministers do not want to repeat the experience of 2004 when Poland and other east European states joined and an annual net migration prediction of 13,000 proved well wide of the mark.
via UK immigration analysis needed on Turkish legal migration, say MPs | UK news | The Guardian.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said the Government will do “everything necessary” to restore order following the third night of violence and looting across London and other cities.
