David Cameron knows that the only criticism from other parties of his plans to restrict welfare access for new migrants will be that he isn’t being tough enough. Such is the fear on all sides of being accused of repeating what the Prime Minister describes in his FT article as the ‘monumental mistake’ of the last Labour government that the only option on the table for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will be to support the move. It will be interesting to see how Miliband fares at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Given Labour has put forward its own ‘tough’ proposals and given Yvette Cooper went to such lengths to complain that the Immigration Bill wasn’t harsh enough, the Labour leader may choose to argue that Cameron isn’t going as far as Labour has now proposed. If he doesn’t make a play for the immigration issue himself, he knows that Cameron, now a masterful shoehorner of pet topics at PMQs, will bring up the ‘monumental mistake’ anyway.
But aside from the show of muscles between the party leaders on the pressing issue of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, the bigger line in Cameron’s announcement is his determination to tackle freedom of movement as part of his renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe.
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