Boris fury over Burnham ‘plot to bring back freedom of movement’ | Politics | News
Boris Johnson accused Andy Burnham of plotting to reverse Brexit by bringing back freedom of movement. The former Conservative Prime Minister said the new Burnham-led Labour government would start by claiming it just wanted to make it easier for students to study across Europe, and would then scrap border controls for EU nationals entirely.
He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: โIโm not actually anti-immigrants. Iโm, you know, I think Iโm lucky that, you know, my own family was allowed to immigrate to this country, all parts of my family years ago. But I think, you know, what people want to see is full legal democratic accountability. And thatโs what they have now got.”
โAnd so when, Andy Burnham says he wants to go closer to the European Union or whatever, whatever heโs saying when he says he wants to, have a new relationship or a reset, what they want is a return to free movement.
โAnd theyโll start with students and all that nonsense, and then itโll become absolutely unstoppable.โ
Keir Starmer had been planning a summer summit with EU leaders to press ahead with his planned โresetโ with Brussels. This has been postponed because of Sir Keirโs resignation but Andy Burnham, who officially becomes Prime Minister Monday, is to press ahead with it later in the year.
Mr Burnham has also said he wants to go further in building even closer links with the EU than his predecessor.
On the agenda is a โyouth mobility schemeโ making it easier for young people from the EU to live and work in the UK without restrictions, with the same right for British young people who want to live in the EU.
Mr Johnson also said Britain needs to insist immigrants adopt our culture, as he slammed immigration failures that he suggested allowed the grooming scandal.
He said: โOver decades weโve been far too limp wristed in insisting the people conform to our ideals, norms of our society … the grooming gangs, all this sort of stuff. You know, these we havenโt been tough enough in insisting on basic British norms of behaviour … it is totally unacceptable that you should have populations of women, who donโt speak Englishโ
