European Council

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is both a wish list—it is things we want—and a to-do list, because we are going to do them.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Given that hundreds of thousands of migrants are trying to get into the EU from Libya and Syria, is there anything to stop other EU countries giving those people citizenship and therefore allowing them to travel right across the EU, including to the UK, under the principle of free movement of people for EU citizens? Does the Prime Minister accept that the EU will never give up on that principle, and does he therefore agree that anybody who wants proper control of our borders will have to vote to leave the EU in the forthcoming referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that will be debated and discussed a lot in the forthcoming referendum. Obviously, in many cases, people who go to other European states will not get EU citizenship, or citizenship of those states, for many years, so they will not be able to travel freely around the European Union. That is important and we should not mislead people about it. One of the things we want to tighten up in the current rules is the ability of foreign nationals living in other European countries to marry EU nationals and then have access to the UK. We would like that particular judgment to be overturned.