Britain must reclaim control over its borders from Europe and introduce tough immigration controls, a leading Conservative grassroots organisation is demanding.
The plan, outlined in ConservativeHome’s pre-election manifesto, is supported by YouGov polling, which indicates that seven out of ten voters want free movement within the EU scrapped, rising to nine out of ten among Tory voters.
The calls for tougher limits on EU migration, which command sympathy among some cabinet ministers and many Tory MPs, is a deliberate provocation to David Cameron, who has refused to engage with the idea because he sees it as an unrealistic target for his EU renegotiation strategy.
Pressure is growing, however, after the prime minister was confronted by figures last week which showed that net migration was 243,000 in the year to March, up from 175,000 the year before. Two thirds of the increase came from EU citizens, whom Britain is powerless to stop entering the country.
Under the ConservativeHome proposal, Britain would take control of borders back from the EU and existing immigration targets would be replaced by a points-based system, emphasising the skills needed for economic growth, similar to one used in Australia. New immigrants would be required to buy their own health and welfare insurance cover and access to public services would have to be “earned”.
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This latest challenge comes after a difficult week for the prime minister, with the Tory MP Douglas Carswell defecting to Ukip because of a failure to make progress on Europe, triggering a by-election in his safe seat of Clacton.
Mr Carswell’s move has put the persistence of the Ukip vote and Mr Cameron’s difficulties in Europe back in the spotlight before the party conference season. It came as:
Another Conservative MP in a marginal seat vulnerable to Ukip surprised colleagues by announcing that he is standing down at the general election. Chris Kelly, who was elected for Dudley South only in 2010 with a 3,856 majority, is not switching to Ukip but said that he wished Mr Carswell luck.
Tory MPs urged Mr Cameron to ignore the Clacton by-election, with Nigel Evans urging the leadership to “sit this one out”. A poll by Survation for The Mail on Sunday put Ukip on 64 per cent, with the Conservatives trailing on 20 per cent. It also emerged that Boris Johnson turned down a request from Mr Cameron to fight the seat rather than Uxbridge.
The Tories face a threat from Ukip in up to 20 seats, according to a leading academic and Ukip expert.
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Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister and champion of EU free movement, was chosen on Saturday as the EU council president. Mr Cameron opposed Mr Tusk six weeks ago, fearing that he would block his reforms, but changed his mind last weekwhen he looked unstoppable. Mr Tusk said he would “meet the concerns voiced by Britain” about benefit tourism.
George Osborne’s views on Europe have undergone an “unmistakable hardening”, according to his biographer. The chancellor now believes that EU exit is “no longer unthinkable” and fears that the eurozone is working against the interests of countries outside the single currency.
The prime minister is hoping to defer any internal row about Europe until after next year’s general election, believing that he has struck a bargain with Tory Eurosceptics to delay any public disagreement about renegotiating Britain’s membership until then.
However, the resilience of Ukip in the polls, coupled with the lack of substantial improvement of the party’s fortunes in marginal seats, is fuelling concerns in the Tory ranks.
No 10 had hoped to avoid a dispute over migration by promising a crackdown on benefit tourism, and addressing other factors that encourage EU citizens to come to the UK.
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Cabinet figures such as Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith want Mr Cameron to go further. Mrs May has questioned why national governments should not be allowed to impose a cap on numbers if European immigration reaches certain thresholds.
Introducing caps on EU migration is not impossible, according to Mats Persson, the director of Open Europe, a think-tank that looks at European reform.
He said: “If this is the only thing Cameron goes for, he may just get something back ... but for many EU leaders this issue remains a clear red line and it involves sweeping treaty change, so failure would be the most likely scenario.”
The ConservativeHome manifesto contains other proposals designed to unite the party. They include creating garden city corporations to build homes in places such as the Thames Estuary, an official ceiling on national debt, scrapping the HS2 rail plan to give the savings to northern cities, changing the tax relief on pensions to help working people save, higher national insurance thresholds and the creation of a UK sovereign wealth fund.