U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday claimed an Indian organisation which made money out of sending migrants to Britain had put up a billboard in India with a picture of London's red bus and a banner reading: “Get a free ride to London”. He cited this as an example of how “bogus” immigrants were “playing the system” to gain entry by masquerading as students or dependants of British families.
In a hard-hitting speech, Mr. Cameron said his government was determined to stop the “abuse” of the system by taking action “across all routes of immigration”. He said there was widespread abuse of student visas with people using them to come to Britain to find jobs. Many did not return to their countries after the visa expired. The billboard, he suggested, showed how getting to Britain had been reduced to a joke.
His remarks came as barely concealed tensions in Britain's ruling coalition over immigration erupted into the open on Thursday when a senior Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister accused the Tory Prime Minister David Cameron of inflaming extremism with his strong comments earlier in the day.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, a former acting leader of the party, described as “very unwise” Mr. Cameron's remarks in which he echoed the view of anti-immigrant groups that mass migration was creating social tensions as new settlers were “unwilling to integrate besides putting intolerable pressure on public services”. “This has been the experience for many people in our country — and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it,” he said.
Recently he caused a furore with a frontal attack on multiculturalism which, he claimed, had encouraged Muslim extremism. Mr. Cable suggested that the Prime Minister was using an emotive issue to please right-wing anti-immigrant Tory voters ahead of next month's local elections. “These comments from the Prime Minister are very unwise. I do understand that there are elections coming, but talk about mass immigration risks inflaming the extremism to which Mr Cameron and I are both strongly opposed,” he said.
Though it is open knowledge the Lib Dems and particularly Mr. Cable are opposed to the Tory line on immigration, this is the first time a senior party figure in the government has challenged the Prime Minister.
Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg sought to distance the party from Mr. Cable's statement with his aides saying he was “his own man but, with a sting in the tail, added: “Cameron's language isn't what we would have used… but he's a Conservative leader talking to Conservative voters in the run-up to an election.”
Mr. Cameron insisted that his remarks were consistent with the coalition's policy on immigration.
“The policy is agreed by the coalition, it is coalition and government policy and it is put in place right across the board. This policy has been agreed by the two parties working together — we had a proper debate about how to get...things right, he said.
