Sunday shows round-up: Blair says Britain can limit immigration without leaving the EU

Tony Blair – Britain can limit immigration without leaving the EU

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has been trying to find a way to reduce immigration to the UK without leaving the European Union. The Institute for Global Change, the organisation that Blair set up earlier this year, has published a report on this very topic. Outlining his proposals to Andrew Marr, Blair also called on sympathetic MPs to unite against Brexit in order to prevent ‘economic and political damage’:

AM: A lot of people already this morning have said ‘It’s a little bit rich coming from you given how you opened the doors back in the 2000s to mass immigration and changed lots of communities.

TB: We shouldn’t exaggerate this… In 2004, we could have imposed transitional arrangements on those accession countries, the 8 countries… But the real point is, the situation back then was different… 2017, post financial crisis, post austerity – no you’ve got to listen to what people are saying and react to it.