Britain won’t pull up the drawbridge, vows Clegg

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has dismissed suggestions that Britain was planning to “pull up the drawbridge” on any exodus of workers from crisis-hit eurozone nations.

His intervention came after Home Secretary Theresa May disclosed that contingency planning was under way to deal with a potential influx of would-be immigrants.

There are fears that Greece in particular could leave the euro and go bankrupt, causing millions of people to lose their jobs and possibly look for work abroad. But Mr Clegg yesterday said Mrs May had only been talking about “keeping an eye on migration patterns”.

“I really do think some of the breathless talk in the media about do we pull up the drawbridge to stop hordes of people migrating across Europe is both far-fetched, somewhat apocalyptic in tone and deeply unhelpful,” he said. “We are not there yet.”

The Deputy Prime Minister said he hoped Greece would remain a member of the euro.

Mrs May had said “quite sensibly that these are things that the Home Office keeps under review, as it should”, he added. Mrs May said on Saturday that “work is ongoing” to deal with large movements of people in the event of the break-up of the single currency. She did not indicate the sort of response that was under consideration.

In normal circumstances, the government’s hands are tied because EU nationals are largely entitled to live and work anywhere in the single market.

But she said the government was “looking at the trends” on immigration from struggling European economies.

She said there was no evidence of increased migration at present, but added that it was “difficult to say how it is going to develop in coming weeks”.

Asked whether emergency immigration controls are under consideration, Mrs May said: “It is right that we do some contingency planning on this [and] that is work that is ongoing.”

Prime Minister David Cameron cast doubt on the future of the euro last week when he warned the eurozone that it “either has to make up or it is looking at a potential break-up”.

Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said moves to curb immigration from within the EU were “fraught with dangers”.

“The Home Secretary should choose her words and the methods of announcing changes much more carefully in future,” he added.