SPANISH PRACTICES

22 February

‘Immigration for a socialist government is not just a policy of public order or border controls’, so said Consuelo Rumi, the Spanish Immigration Minister, as his government announced that they were legalising up to 1.5million illegal immigrants in Spain.

There had been no consultation with the other member governments of the EU, despite the fact that these immigrants will automatically be allowed to travel to and immigrate into all the other EU countries, including the UK, as a result of EU rules.

Both the Dutch and German governments expressed their alarm at the unilateral move. The UK was silent.

This move once again exposes the uselessness of the proposed Conservative immigration policy. It is all very well for Michael Howard to be talking about handing over immigration controls to UN officials (who will almost certainly be offered bribes, as they have been at senior levels regarding Iraq which have led to calls for Kofi Anan’s resignation), but the Conservative commitment to keeping the UK in the EU allows any other EU government to decide to increase immigration into the UK whether we like it or not.

But that is not all our EU partner has been getting up to. Not only has Spain ratified the draft EU constitution, in a referendum on Sunday (with a low turnout), but the Spanish Premier, Jose Zapatero, could scarcely wait to announce what the future held for the EU. He has pronounced that national foreign embassies will be closed and replaced by an EU foreign service.

‘We will undoubtedly see European embassies in the world, not ones from each country, with European diplomats and a European foreign service’, he said.