Three-quarters of a Million People Gained Right to Come to UK in Last Year

Commenting on the publication of Eurostat figures on the acquisition of citizenship in the EU, Vote Leave Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said:

‘These figures show how little control we have over our borders while we stay in the EU.

‘Since 2009, close to four million people have been given the right to come to the UK, with Moroccans, Albanians and Turkish citizens the main beneficiaries. The number of people coming to the EU is increasing each year and it is becoming unsustainable. This level of migration puts a strain on our invaluable public services, as well as jobs and wages. The British people are absolutely right to be concerned.

‘However, today the Prime Minister’s EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as “idiots”. I think that’s appalling.

‘The only way to take back control of how our country and our economy is governed is to vote to leave the EU on the 23 June.’

Eurostat has today published acquisition of citizenship statistics for the EU.

• Over three-quarters of a million people gained the right to come to the UK in 2014.

• Grants of citizenship by other EU member states are on the rise. Since 2009, EU member states have granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons, the equivalent of the accession of Albania and Montenegro.

• The UK has no control over how other EU member states issue national citizenship.

• The European Court is taking control over British citizenship, declaring EU citizenship is the ‘fundamental status’ of British citizens.

• The Prime Minister’s EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as “idiots”.

Over three-quarters of a million people gained the right to come to the UK in 2014.

In 2014, EU member states granted citizenship to 889,139 persons. The UK granted citizenship to 125,605 persons.

This means that other member states granted citizenship to 763,534 persons in 2014.

The vast majority of these are non-EU nationals who gained EU citizenship for the first time. Eurostat notes that: ‘9 out of 10 persons granted an EU citizenship in 2014 were non-EU citizens’.

Under EU law, every EU citizen has the right to enter, reside and work in the UK. EU law provides that: ‘Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States’.

Grants of citizenship by other EU member states are on the rise. Since 2009, EU member states have granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons, the equivalent of the accession of Albania and Montenegro.

Grants of EU citizenship by other member states have risen from 568,200 in 2009 to 763,500 in 2014.

Between 2009 and 2014, other EU member states granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons.

This is the equivalent of the combined accession of Albania (population: 2.89 million) and Montenegro (population: 0.62 million).

We have no control over how other EU member states issue national citizenship.

Some countries in the Schengen area sell passports. Until 2014, Malta sold national passports to the highest bidder with no residence requirement.

The European Court is taking control over British citizenship, declaring EU citizenship is the ‘fundamental status’ of British citizens.

In 2001, the European Court declared EU citizenship would ‘be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States’.

In its Rottmann ruling in 2010, the European Court said that ‘Member States must, when exercising their powers in the sphere of nationality, have due regard to European Union law’, blocking member states from automatically stripping national citizenship from criminals who acquire it fraudulently.

These judgements were in direct breach of promises made to Denmark in 1992 that EU citizenship would ‘not in any way take the place of national citizenship. The question whether an individual possesses the nationality of a Member State will be settled solely by reference to the national law of the Member State concerned’.

David Cameron has used the Danish deal as a model for his own renegotiation, claiming: ‘Denmark negotiated the same sort of legal opt-outs and, 23 years on, they clearly stand and are legally binding. Those are the facts’.

The Prime Minister’s EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as “idiots”.

Ryan Coetzee, who is Director of Strategy for the Prime Minister’s campaign, has described as ‘brilliant’ an article by Matthew D’Ancona (Twitter, 12 June 2016, link). The article said leaving the EU was ‘the idiot option’.

Mr Coetzee has previously claimed that: ‘No policy on immigration is the right policy’ (Twitter, 31 May 2016, link).