Poll: Was dropping immigration restrictions on eastern European migrants a mistake?
Former home secretary Jack Straw has admitted that dropping immigration restrictions on eastern European migrants was a "spectacular mistake".
The Labour MP said handing immediate working rights to Poles and other nationalities who joined the EU in 2004 was a "well-intentioned policy we messed up".
Writing in the Lancashire Telegraph, Mr Straw said: "However careful you are, as a minister, in your analysis, many decisions are based upon predictions about the future, where, ultimately, your fate is in the lap of the gods.
"One spectacular mistake in which I participated (not alone) was in lifting the transitional restrictions on the eastern European states like Poland and Hungary which joined the EU in mid-2004.
"Thorough research by the Home Office suggested that the impact of this benevolence would in any event be 'relatively small, at between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants per year up to 2010'.
"Events proved these forecasts worthless. Net migration reached close to a quarter of a million at its peak in 2010. Lots of red faces, mine included."
The full story: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2013/11/13/immigration-move-a-mistake-straw/
