Opinion

Newton Emerson: Boris Johnson's immigration bombshell raises intriguing questions

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

An inordinate amount of the mess the UK has got itself into over Brexit is due to prime minister Theresa May making immigration a red line. This set in chain a remorseless jigsaw of EU legal logic.

Without free movement it is impossible to remain in the single market, creating the bulk of the practical problems in managing the border.

Without single market membership, May could only agree to a backstop for Britain that covered the customs union. The Northern Ireland backstop covers both, creating the potential sea border that made her withdrawal agreement unsellable to the DUP and others in Westminster.

Yet May continued to seek every other benefit of the single market by promising continued regulatory alignment with the EU.

The result was pithily described by Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, as: “Remain, without freedom of movement.”

This is why it is so intriguing that Boris Johnson, by far the favourite to succeed May, is rubbing out her red line.

In the latest leadership debate this week he refused to pledge to reduce immigration or to give any target figure.

Last week, he proposed an amnesty for the UK’s estimated half a million illegal immigrants, lamenting they cannot properly “take part in the economy” and “pay their taxes” and ridiculing the idea significant numbers could be deported.

Johnson is a famously unreliable witness to his own intentions. A desperate feature of the Tory leadership contest is how many people, including Johnson’s supporters, are actively hoping he is not telling the truth - that when he promises to ditch the Northern Ireland backstop entirely, for example, as he also did this week, he is only covering himself ahead of ditching the DUP.

But what dishonest motivation could Johnson have for making these points on immigration? His refusal to cut numbers was denounced as “a betrayal” by The Sun and will have dismayed many - probably a majority - of Conservative members and voters. It will also have enraged the Brexit Party, whose polling strength denies Johnson the option of a general election.

The amnesty proposal is not especially radical on closer examination. Illegal immigrants already gain indefinite leave to remain after 20 years and Johnson suggested cutting that period to 12. In 2009, while Mayor of London, he proposed cutting it to five, so technically his position has hardened.

However, presenting this positively as an amnesty - a dramatic, American-sounding concept - was quite a bombshell to drop in the middle of a leadership contest. Why bother? If Johnson was concerned about accusations of inconsistency since his time as mayor, he could have presented his view as a mere tweak of the existing rules then waffled away from the subject, as he does with everything else.

May’s focus on immigration was seen as the obsession of a long-serving, unimaginative home secretary, although it was a concern shared by her predecessor David Cameron. In the run-up to the 2016 referendum he sought concessions against free movement and became increasingly fearful of losing the vote as Brussels held firm.

This should all have been unnecessary. EU membership permits a fair degree of control over intra-European immigration and full control over non-European immigration. It was May’s failure to use those controls as home secretary, having repeatedly set targets and promised to reduce numbers, that wrongly bumped the issue onto her Brexit agenda. She could not then admit, as prime minister, that it was only there because she had been useless.

The EU says it will reopen May’s withdrawal agreement if there is a “fundamental change” in the UK’s red lines - a position with the crucial endorsement of the Irish and French governments.

Immigration has to a large extent been the UK’s only red line and changing it would unlock everything.

Johnson strongly advocated continued single membership for years, right up to the referendum. If consistency is any guide to his honesty, that might be worth noting.