You'll have to ask him.

It depends on your perspective I would imagine, do we want a race to the bottom or do we want a living wage.

When you consider how the whole of the economy has been torn asunder by Globalisation, you may think that a living wage *is* a race to the bottom, ne c'est pas ?

I don't share all Ken Adams' instincts on this matter but I do believe his insistence on non-partisanship is right.

Tory and Labour have both long had their knickers in a twist on the EU

and EU immigration. If you're a free-market Tory, you will naturally support the free movement of labour, the natural extension of which is a liberal immigration policy. The problem is in reconciling that with the xenophobic

tendency within the party.

Meanwhile, a traditionally Labourite belief in regulation and union strength ('protecting British workers') does not sit that easily with an open-door immigration policy. But, as we know, Labour c2003 had only a very half-hearted belief in regulation and unions anyway.

There seems to be disagreement on how the 'open-door' policy came about, whether it really was based on an under-estimation of the numbers of Poles, Slovaks etc who would come, a deliberate attempt to raise the population and flood the labour market, or a pragmatic attempt to keep control of a phenomenon that would have happened anyway. If it was either of the latter, Labour hid their true intentions from the public.

Mr Adams suggests the Tories 'would probably have done the same'. An intriguing thought, considering that the PM would have been William 'save the pound' Hague, a man who spent the entire 2001 election campaign banging a 'no surrender to Europe' drum. Considering how much Mr Hague now enjoys co'ordinating foreign policy with his fellow EU ministers over the canapes, I suspect he'd have been open to a U-turn over the immigration business as well.

For all that, I don't think he (Hague) would have been wrong, just as I don't think the Labour policy was wrong. I also think it was the inevitable result of various historical, political and cultural factors - EU membership, deregulation of labour, the end of communism, British belief in EU enlargement (held by both Tory and Labour), globalisation, the primacy of the English language, other attractions of the UK etc etc.

Yes Roger thinking about it after I had posted you are right.

The only way to make them listen is to stop voting for them, of course then they will say we are not interested enough and invent ways to get more people voting. Oh they are doing that already!

The thing is Roger we cannot think nationally while we are a member of an international organisation which makes the rules for the whole community. The rules are for the benefit of the EU and not for a member state.

I do not accept that leaving the Union would effect our trade with other member states to the extent you suggest, do not forget we buy more from them than they buy from us are the Germans actually going to stop selling Mercedes in Britain?

We would have to leave the Union if we wanted a different agreement, this business of re-negotiation is a non starter, it can’t happen the EU is not built that way and not intended to be a trade only club. The EU is intended to become The United States of Europe with one government one tax system one army ect. As the destination is already set in DNA of the EU any so called re-negotiation would therefore only result in slowing down of the train, the disinflation would remain the same.

I don't agree; re-negotiation is actually happening. The 17 members of the Euro group are being elbowed into faster political and fiscal integration. That leaves to reaming 10 to decide how they want to go. It is with the 10 rather than the 15 that we need discuss what serves the 10 best. The only decided issues that we can not get out of are the common market and the standardisation of standards. A two speed Europe is a reality.

More important to us is the reorganisation of the British economy to shift away from it's reliance on the now disgraced financial sector back into manufacturing. Our balance of payments issues are more significant in who we import from than who we export to. There we will find that the Far East is the problem. I see little prospect of increasing exports in the long or medium term so it is the reduction of imports we need to address. This by returning to the manufacture of domestic goods for internal consumption, giving growth and jobs.

No James, Mr Blairs speech was about the Future of Europe he mentioned the media in passing.

I do not think Blair was uninterested in treason and as a lawyer he would understand the ramifications should a case succeed to court. One of his first acts when he was elected was to remove the Treason Act 1795 from the statue books, this act had been used in some actions against the previous administration, but The Attorney-General took over the cases and then dropped them as not in the public interest. Blair was not thinking of what people would think of him but was referring to actual treason against the nation state of the United Kingdom knowing that the main act that enshrined treason against the state had been removed.

Switzerland: How would we expect our government to respond to any other bully. But the important issue is not how a government of Britain responds to any particular issue, but that it would have the authority to do so, that after all, is why we elect them in the first place. As it stands at the moment they do not have the authority in so many areas of government thus our democracy has diminished.

Well, he does say he's 'given up conducting a serious debate in some quarters'. He also mentions anti-European sentiment generally, including both the xenophobic strain and the strain which rejects 'supra-national organisations', as well as a kind of 'pro-European practical scepticism'.

He also says that 'if the EU didn't exist, we'd have to invent it', but that's no surprise as we know what an EU enthusiast he was/is.

As for your last paragraph, it's an evasion. 'How our government responds to a particular issue' is crucial to this discussion, which - until it got sidetracked - was all about the immigration of people from the 2004 accession states. So my question again ; what would/should our policy be on this matter if we withdrew from the EU?

This is an example of how, if a referendum on EU membership were ever going to come before the people of the UK, you would need to be rather clearer about what being outside would mean, rather than just saying 'it would give 'us' the power to do A,B,C'. As well as being vague, it's misleading - we would have to deal with the EU on as many things affecting our national life as we do today, but from outside rather than inside. I'm not sure calling them 'bullies' would help in getting much of a deal either.

Blair like a lot of EU supporters have never wanted to debate the issue of the EU seriously preferring instead to dismiss questioners as xenophobic. The reality is nobody in this country has ever given our governments the public authority to destroy the nation state, those doing it of course do not want to talk about it.

We do not deal with the EU we are part of the EU only if we left would we need to deal with the EU and the terms and conditions would be agreed at the point of leaving.

As we would not be bound to a voting system where our concerns can be overridden by majority vote, we could pick and choose which which agreements we enter with the EU, as did the Swiss when they chose to enter an agreement over immigration, but as can be seen if the Swiss change their mind although the EU parliament tries to bully them they have the freedom to reject or re-negotiate the agreement at a later time. And the Swiss people have the ability to get rid of their government and its polices and its agreements.

Instead of having to live under agreements made by Ted Heath and all who followed him, then set in stone in the EU Aquis the governments we elect would be free to decide what was good for the country now.

There will be a referendum not because any of our political elite want one but because the only way to save the Euro and probably the EU is going to be by creating a fiscal and political union. The EU itself is changing we would have to decide if we wanted to give up any semblance of nationhood and become a state in the new union and accept the Euro as our currency and Brussels as our government, if not we would have to leave.

'preferring instead to dismiss questioners as xenophobic.'

But he's specifically NOT doing that. He's drawing a very clear (and correct) distinction between xenophobia and distrust of 'supra-national organisations'. I'd say we're hearing the word xenophobia a lot less now than we did then, precisely because (I freely acknowledge) the anti-EU movement is gaining a lot of ground and the pros need to come up with better arguments.

As to Switzerland, there's a dispute there, which I'm not qualified to pass judgement on, about whether their actions are 'unlawful' (in which case they're trying to renege on the treaty) or within the treaty's remit (in which case, your suggestion of 'bullying' isn't so unreasonable).

But the implications for a UK outside the EU are clearly that we would need (and want) a freedom of movement treaty with the EU or (in the event of a wider break-up)the countries which constitute it.

But then, despite some reservations, I'm still pro-EU. None of the visions of the UK outside it, including that of a kind of off-shore Switzerland, are yet appealing enough to change my mind.

As I said before the DNA of the EU is to create a United States of Europe, hence the idea behind the EU version of freedom of movement was to break down the national barriers. It is not however simply a matter of allowing anyone from the EU to enter this country we must also allow them to work and settle and vote here if they choose.

Like most things with the EU this is an integration measure where the freedom of movement puts pressure on other areas (instance; crime, police, law, EU arrest warrant, welfare, transport,employments rights ect) hence the need for more things to be decided at an EU level.

So I would suggest that were we to leave the project we would not need to recognise the EU version of freedom of movement, which was designed to break down borders, but would instead control our own borders and allow those in we wanted under the conditions we wanted. Having said that I do not suppose for one moment that this will happen given the present crop political leaders are not nationalist leaders but part of the world government elite who do not feel any responsibility to maintain the nation state, protect its borders or its people.

This should not be confused with help for asylum seekers

Shaun, the Treaty of Rome has a lot to do with the article and the subsequent debate, which is specifically about Ed Milliband's current view of Labour's immigration policy post-EU enlargement.

It's you who's getting off topic.

Oh dear someone got the facts I'm off topic! Did you know it was actually Churchills government which commissioned the Beverage report 1942 which was used as the basis for the welfare state/ NHS implemented by Atlee's government, truth is a strange thing to understand.

By talking about the Beveridge Report, you're still off-topic, even if you're right. Anyway, just because you commission a report doesn't mean you're going to implement all its recommendations. It seems to be commonly acknowledged that Labour were elected in 1945 because they were more trusted by the electorate to do that.

Churchill also said this in 1942 ;

'We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.'

This is another reason to stand by what I wrote above ; that party-political posturing over the EU and EU immigration is ridiculous.

'Immigration was invited from beyond europe, from north africa asia and far east'

When, precisely was this done? As far as I'm aware immgration law towards these countries has not changed for decades.

The laws you mention are nothing to do with numbers or the right to reside here - they are all just laws to prevent nasty, bigoted dicrimination. Why should you be allowed to treat someone differently because of arbitrary factors such as their skin colour or their sexual orientation? You appear to be in favour of doing so.

@ James, We should always try to avoid quoting Churchill on the EU - which he was not talking about in the previous quote - he was instead referring to the Council of Europe and in Zurich in 1946 not 1942.

"We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed"...Sir Winston Churchill.

He also said something like if he had to choose between what was to become the EU and the open sea he would choose the open sea. Many years later De Gaulle threw the quote back at us when we wanted to join, saying Britain would have to anchor itself of the coast of Europe before it could become a member.

Thank you Shaun; The history of the Beverage report makes very interesting reading, it completely turns on its head that it was a Labour initiative; although there was a coalition government at the time and it was a Labour minister who made the first announcement, the Labour party voted against the proposals and only adopted them later in 1945.

@Ken Adams, OK, yes, a speech in Zurich in 1946. The same thoughts were, however, expressed in a 1942 letter to Eden - 'my thoughts rest primarily in the revival of the family of Europe'. He is credited with instigating the 'Movement for European Unity' in 1947 and the Council of Europe grew out of the first congress of this.

I agree that we should be selective about quoting any politician - or perhaps put all their quotes together to see how they contradict - but if we are in the business of invoking Churchill, better to invoke him on a topic that's actually relevant to this debate rather than on the Beveridge Report which, for all its glories, is pretty much irrelevant.

I said in my post above that politicians of both the major parties are all round the twist on this issue.

Well they are in a twist over immigration because they are not in charge of the issue, that is in the EU domain. They are in a twist because they do not want to admit they actually do not have the power to control our own borders because if they did people might start wondering what use they were. All Blair did was to open our doors strait away rather than using the entry condition on the new states that allowed a moratorium on workers for 5 years.

Thing is Helen does it also include the children of Eastern European nationals who do not live in this country and do not contribute.

If it does then where are we going to get the money from, as a welfare sytem must be nationally based at some point you must draw a line, where would you draw it?