HOME SECRETARY CLARKE REJECTS EC OPEN BORDERS
The Home secretary has put Britain on a collision course with Brussels by refusing to accept an ultimatum that all European Community frontiers be scrapped by the end of the year.
Kenneth Clarke rejected the need to abolish passport checks at European borders, saying: "It is for individual member states to take the measures they consider most appropriate to control immigration from third countries and to combat terrorism, crime and drugs."
Mr Clarke also rejected the terms of the Commission which said the drive towards a single market .... "allows no margin of discretion".
The ruling said states are legally bound to remove all internal border controls at the end of 1992. The Community's 1986 Single European Act leaves no room for border controls even to handle immigration or security, EC-officials said.
Ministers have stressed for years that with no intention of introducing identity cards - an alternative check on the movement of people within the country - border controls must remain. The European Commission is demanding a committment at the June EC summit in Lisbon that all border controls end on December 31. It is threatening legal action against any government which fails to comply.
Mr Clarke disputed the need to remove all frontier controls. "The UK has already taken steps to lighten control on EC nationals and we will look for further improvments."
The latest Commission ruling urges EC leaders at next month's summit to make an "unequivocal political declaration" to abolish all controls at internal frontiers".
In a direct warning to Britain, the Commission goes on: "This is a clear and straitforward objective. It imposes an obligation to produce results and leaves no margin of discretion. All controls must go, whatever their form and whatever their justification."
The issue will come to a head as Britain takes over the EC presidency in July.
Source: "The Guardian", London, 8.5.92Comment
It is hard to envisage that Britain will comply with this ruling. Although senior police officials concede in private that border controls are not very effective practical deterrents to terrorism, drugs and international crime, at a psychological level, controls are vital: a large part of the British national identity depends on it being an island, and therefore symbollically able to "draw up the drawbridge". The British Conservative government would find it difficult to accede to the ruling. It would risk the strong hostility of the popular press, which would be well briefed by the right-wing immigration officers' union (which has a vested interest in the retention of border controls). In addition, it is not even certain that the governmet could get an agreement ratified, since large sections of its own parliamentary party would be hostile.
If, however, the ruling is complied with, identity cards would almost certainly be introduced (about which, traditionally, the British have psychological difficulties). This is a threat that the government has long held out, claiming that it does not itself wish to introduce identity cards, but that "Brussels" might make them necessary.
Unless the Commission retreats, this looks like being one of the more contentious British domestic political issues in the remainder of the year.
Jolyon Jenkins