Blair's battle with the big beasts over immigration

Cabinet disagreed over workers from EU

- DAN WARBURTON

TONY Blair defied Labour big beast MPs to give Eastern European migrants unrestricted access to work in the UK, newly released files have revealed.

The then-Prime Minister faced a wave of warnings from senior ministers over his plans to allow mass migration more than 20 years ago, documents state.

Deputy PM John Prescott and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw both urged delay, urging the government to impose some controls.

Others including Home Secretary David Blunkett argued the economy needed migrant labour to prosper.

The decision paved the way for hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to the UK and sparked an anti-EU sentiment thought to have driven Brexit in 2016.

Home Office predictions said the impact on the UK jobs market of allowing eight mainly former Soviet bloc states joining the EU in May 2004 would be relatively limited.