BY BEN KERRIGAN
Labour frontrunner, Andy Burnham has piled fresh pressure on David Cameron to bring forward his planned referendum to next year and demanded a renegotiation to address wide concerns over Britain’s lax immigration system.
The move means that, if Burnham is chosen by his party to succeed Ed Miliband in September, his party will backtrack on its stance previously expressed under the leadership of Ed Milliband by backing behind a referendum vote on the EU, and also demand a tough new settlement for the British people as soon as possible.
After the Conservatives’ electoral victory win last week , senior Tories also warned the prime minister not to impose a minimal renegotiation on the public, asserting that the public will not be fooled and that a weak deal would benefit Nigel Farage’s Ukip party. Burnham told the Observer that a date should be moved for the sake of British businesses who remain apprehensive of the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s potential exit of the EU.
He said ” The country has now voted for a European referendum and under my leadership the Labour party will not be a grudging presence on that stage. We will now embrace it. It should be brought forward to 2016.
“It should be in the Queen’s speech that it should be in 2016, and the message I would send to Cameron is that I would offer support to deliver it in 2016. It is not going to be in anybody’s interest for this to rumble on through this parliament. We have to get to it. We have to do it, embrace the argument. That is the most fundamental problem facing British business right now.” He stressed the need for rules to be tightened on EU migrants claiming benefits in the country.
It has been stated numerously on this site that laws indeed need to be tightened on EU migrants in this country claiming benefits, and the number of people entering the country also needs to be urgently controlled. However, one thing many of these politicians seem to forget is that there are several Brits in this country also claiming benefits who are to lazy to work. There are also several people here who lack the skills and literacy to find suitable work even though it is fair to say that any kind of work is better than no work at all.
This doesn’t mean we should sit back and allow more people from other countries to come here and feed on our lax benefits system, but it also means that we must not forget that there are many people from the EU who come here to work and who work hard. It is interesting that the defeated Labour party are now trying to dictate terms to Cameron who won the elections with flying colours. Cameron has made clear his position to give the British public a referendum on this divisive issue, and it must be stated in no uncertain terms that the Labour party whom I whole heartedly supported and voted for now look divided on this matter. It is barely a week since their beleaguered leader who bowed out of his position was insistent on the need for the country to stay in the EU, whilst their shadow secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, Chukka Umunna joined him to lambast the Conservative party for being irresponsible in light of a statement from the H.S.B.C, who were considering relocating their headquarters out of the UK because of the potential ramifications of our exit from the EU.
Umunna himself recently announced his decision to abandon his plans to run for the party’s leadership despite backing from Tony Blair’s right hand man, Peter Mandelson. Is this a sign that the Labour party are now falling apart? Maybe so. It seems the opposition party ought to concentrate on uniting their party and consolidating their strengths instead of playing into the hands of Cameron who is probably still celebrating on Champagne after an outright victory that made a nonsense of polls we all believed.
The issue of the EU is something that still needs to be discussed and debated thoroughly, and this is a matter for Cameron and his aids to decide, not a man still in a bid to lead his party, let alone dictate to a leader how he should run the country he has been elected to run.
