Afternoon summary
- Ken Livingstone, who was suspended by Labour for claiming that Hitler was a supporter of Zionism, is giving up his position on the party’s ruling body. As Rajeev Syal reports, the former London mayor was supposed to be one of six key supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who planned to stand for the national executive committee. But following discussions among fellow Corbynites, he has been dropped from the slate in favour of the leftwing activist Rhea Wolfson, he told the Guardian. The decision means Livingstone has effectively given up his most influential role within the Labour party.
- The former Tory MP Neil Hamilton has been elected to lead the seven-strong Ukip group in the Welsh assembly, winning by four votes to three. The Ukip leader Nigel Farage later criticised the decision, saying Ukip AMs should have elected Nathan Gill, the party’s leader in Wales, as their leader in the assembly.
I have worked closely with Nathan Gill as leader of Ukip Wales. I have always found him to be hard-working, honest, and loyal.
His removal after a successful Welsh Assembly election campaign is unjust and an act of deep ingratitude. In behaving like this, Ukip looks too like the other parties that we have fought so hard against.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
According to the agenda for a pre-summit conference taking place tomorrow, the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari is speaking in the opening session. The summit proper is happening on Thursday. David Cameron’s comments had a certain 19th-hole tactlessness about them but, as Number 10 argued (see 3.28pm), they had quite a lot of justification too.
On BBC News James Landale, the BBC’s diplomatic editor, has just suggested that Cameron made his comment deliberately, to generate publicity for a summit that he has personally organised and that, until now, has attracted relatively little media interest.
UPDATE: I’ve corrected this to make it clear that the agenda is for the pre-summit conference taking place tomorrow, not for the summit itself on Thursday.
Updated
My colleague Patrick Wintour has posted a link to a speech explaining how it took America some time to realise quite how deeply entrenched corruption is in Afghanistan. It is a speech delivered earlier this year by John Sopko, the American who runs SIGAR, the body set up by Congress to audit aid spending in Afghanistan.
This is great on how long it took America to realise corruption is the system of government in Afghanistan. https://t.co/Jh1jncziNZ
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 10, 2016
Here is an extract.
Afghans regularly report having to pay bribes to a variety of Afghan government service providers, including the police, the courts, health personnel, and educators. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that in 2012, “half of Afghan citizens paid a bribe while requesting a public service.” Last year, over half of Afghans said they paid a bribe to the police. Sixty-three percent of Afghans who had contact with the courts say they paid a bribe to judicial officials. More than half of the Afghans who had contact with the public healthcare system reported paying a bribe.
There are numerous reports of the Afghan government paying for non-existent ghost teachers, ghost schools, and ghost police. According to a leaked copy of a recent Afghan presidential task force report obtained by Tolo News, hundreds of ghost schools and thousands of ghost teachers have been uncovered. The task force also reportedly found millions of dollars have been embezzled, unfinished projects have been reported complete, and records of student education, registration, and attendance are riddled with discrepancies. All of this creates opportunities for corruption. Recently, the head of the provincial council in volatile Helmand Province estimated that 40% of the Afghan security forces assigned to the province simply do not exist.
My colleague Aditya Chakrabortty says it is worth remembering that Transparency International’s corruption index is just a measure of perceptions of corruption, to a large extent reflecting international business opinion.
He says the Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy index offers an alternative global measure of probity. It puts the UK in 15th place (ie, 15th worse). Nigeria and Afghanistan do not feature.
This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.
No 10 not commenting on why Cameron has increased UK aid to 'fantastically corrupt' Nigeria + Afghanistan by 30%. Now £435 million a year
— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) May 10, 2016
Here is the Guardian’s story about David Cameron’s comments.
Transparency International, an anti-corruption campaigning organisation, has said that David Cameron should worry about corruption in the UK, not just in Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Cobus de Swardt, its managing director, said that the leaders of Nigeria and Afghanistan were working to combat corruption, but that Britain could do more itself.
There is no doubt that historically, Nigeria and Afghanistan have had very high levels of corruption, and that continues to this day.
But the leaders of those countries have sent strong signals that they want things to change, and the London Anti-Corruption Summit creates an opportunity for all the countries present to sign up to a new era.
This affects the UK as much as other countries - we should not forget that by providing a safe haven for corrupt assets, the UK and its overseas territories and crown dependencies are a big part of the world’s corruption problem.
This is from the Press Association, an account of what was said at this afternoon’s Number 10 lobby briefing.
Asked whether David Cameron regretted his comment, a Downing Street spokesman said: “Both leaders have been invited to the summit because they are driving the fight against corruption in their countries. The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with them as they do so.”
The spokesman declined to say whether the Nigerian or Afghan governments had contacted Downing Street following the prime minister’s remarks.
He made clear that the PM was aware that he was being filmed at the time he spoke, telling reporters: “The cameras were very close to him. There were multiple cameras in the room.”
According to Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh, Number 10 is hinting that David Cameron knew he was being filmed when he made his comments about Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Get this. No10 hinting Cameron *knew* mics were on when he called Afghanistan/Nigeria 'fantastically corrupt'. 'Cameras are v close to him'
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) May 10, 2016
My colleague Patrick Wintour says the British Virgin Islands say they haven’t been invited to the anti-corruption summit.
British Virgin Islands insist they have not been invited to corruption summit on Thursday by UK government, or even informed of the agenda.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 10, 2016
As a reminder, here is David Cameron’s last Queen-related open mic gaffe. It came when he told Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, that the Queen “purred down the line” when told the result of the Scottish independence referendum.
Asked to comment on David Cameron’s remarks, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “The Royal Household does not comment on private conversations between the prime minister and the Queen”.
This is from the Press Association’s Joe Churcher.
Palace footage also includes John Bercow making a joke about the corruption conference:"They are coming at their own expense, one assumes?"
— Joe Churcher (@JoeChurcher) May 10, 2016
The Spectator’s James Forsyth praises Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, for his tact after David Cameron made his comment about Nigeria and Afghanistan.
The Queen did not respond to Cameron’s comment, but Welby said: “But this particular president is actually not corrupt.”
It is not clear which president Welby was referring to, but it is likely to be the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, because Nigeria is a country that Welby knows well.
Very quick thinking by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as he tries to clean up after Cameron's corruption blunder https://t.co/7ISce015KY
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) May 10, 2016
According to the Transparency International corruption perceptions index 2015, David Cameron was wrong about Nigeria and Afghanistan.
He is almost right about Afghanistan, which comes in at 166th place - third from the bottom.
But Nigeria is only in 136th place - 31 place from the joint bottom (North Korea and Somalia).
Number 10 has declined to comment directly on David Cameron’s comment, which he made during a conversation with the Queen, but a Downing Street spokesman pointed out that the leaders of both Nigeria and Afghanistan have acknowledged the scale of the problem they face.
Afghanistan’s Ashraf Ghani and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari have written essays for a book accompanying the anti-corruption summit in London later this week.
Ghani, the spokesman said, acknowledges in his piece that Afghanistan is “one of the most corrupt countries on earth” and Buhari that corruption became a “way of life” in his country under “supposedly accountable democratic governments”.
Updated
Here is my colleague Patrick Wintour on David Cameron’s corruption comment.
Embarrassing for Cameron, but Nigeria & Afghanistan have leaders trying to end rampant corruption in their countries https://t.co/vVFzsFfctC
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 10, 2016
Leaders of Nigeria and Afghanistan know their countries are corrupt, but both fighting to reverse this. Hence invitation to London Summit.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 10, 2016
Cameron hot mic
David Cameron has been caught on camera describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world”. He was talking about them being represented at his anti-corruption summit later this week.
PM caught on mic (again): says to Queen, 'Nigeria & Afghanistan, possibly the 2 most corrupt countries in the world' pic.twitter.com/xSKzUlNe49
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) May 10, 2016
Reuters has a full write-up here.
Updated
The former Tory MP Neil Hamilton has been elected to lead the seven-strong Ukip group on the Welsh assembly, winning by four votes to three.
The victory does not mean that he will lead the Ukip party in Wales – that post is within the gift of he party’s UK leader, Nigel Farage. At last week’s elections, Labour remained by far the largest party in Wales and will once again lead the Welsh government, as they have since the assembly was formed. At last week’s elections Labour remained by far the largest party in Wales, but Ukip’s wins were striking. As well as Hamilton winning a seat, the former Tory MP Mark Reckless and the Ukip leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, were also successful.
The choice of Hamilton as leader at Cardiff Bay will be seen as a blow for Farage, who is a fan of Gill and could signal the start of a challenge both to Gill’s leadership in Wales and possibly even Farage in the UK.
Hamilton’s wife, Christine, said her husband would not speak to the Guardian, citing a “vile” article by Michael White, who described him as a “shameless, self-promoting rascal.”
While a Tory MP, Hamilton faced allegations that he took cash for asking parliamentary questions, which he has always denied.
Hamilton was born near Blackwood in south Wales but was MP for Tatton from 1983-1997.
His Welsh credentials continue to be questioned – following his defeat he was subject to an impromptu quiz on the BBC and did not know that the iconic Welsh band Manic Street Preachers come from Blackwood.
Neil Hamilton elected leader of the Ukip group in the Welsh assembly
Neil Hamilton’s political comeback continues. The former Tory minister, who left the Commons in 1997 after being mired in the cash-for-questions scandal, was elected to the Welsh assembly last week. And today he has been elected as leader of the seven-strong Ukip group in the Welsh assembly, the BBC reports.
He beat Nathan Gill, Ukip’s leader in Wales. Gill remains the party leader in Wales because that post is appointed by Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader.
Lunchtime summary
- Labour has described the Department for Education’s decision to launch an inquiry into the leak of a Sats paper as a “complete distraction”. After Nick Gibb, the schools minister, announced the inquiry in the Commons (see 12.50pm), Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary, told the World at One:
The government’s attempt to distract from its woeful mismanagement of this year’s Sats by trying to go on the hunt for a “rogue marker” is just that, it’s a complete distraction. The issue here is not that somebody who has access to that website who was surprised, and concerned presumably, to see the subsequent day’s Sats test up online, that is not the issue. The issue is why it was up online in the first place in a part of the website that is accessible by many, many hundreds of markers, most of whom are themselves teachers. It is a serious security breach.
- Iain Duncan Smith has claimed “Turkey is on the ballot paper” in June’s referendum, as he warned it would bring even greater uncontrolled migration when it joins the EU. As Rowena Mason reports, in a direct challenge to David Cameron, the former work and pensions secretary, who resigned in March over the government’s proposed disability cuts, contradicted the prime minister’s argument that Turkey was decades off joining the EU and therefore irrelevant to the debate. “Turkey is on the ballot paper because the European Union is on the ballot paper,” he said after a speech about the EU. “As I understand it, unless I was wrong, the prime minister and others said they wanted to have a road paved from Brussels to Ankara – is it going to stop suddenly and we’re going to down tools?”
- Labour will strain every sinew to push for Britain to stay in the EU, Alan Johnson has said, as he branded the most staunchly pro-Brexit campaigners “extremists”. Responding to the claim that he was an “extremist”, Iain Duncan Smith said:
I don’t know in what world it is extreme to want your democracy back. It’s not extreme to want democratic government in your country. These people in Remain really need to stop throwing threats and ridiculous terms around like this because it demeans them and it demeans the debate.
- Sadiq Khan, the new mayor of London, has rebuffed Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could be an exception to Trump’s proposed policy to ban all Muslims from travelling to the United States. As Jessica Elgot reports, Khan, the capital’s first Muslim mayor, said the call by the presumptive Republican nominee for president for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US was something that directly affected those closest to him, and said making an exception for him was not the answer. “This isn’t just about me – it’s about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world,” Khan said.
- Khan has announced that he will introduce a new one-hour “Hopper fare” for London buses in September. His office explained:
The Hopper fare will automatically be given to anyone who uses pay as you go with Oyster cards or contactless payments, and will allow passengers to make an additional bus journey for free within one hour of touching in on the first bus. For the vast majority of passengers this will mean an end to having to pay two bus fares when changing bus routes, and it is expected particularly to benefit Londoners on lower incomes who often rely on the bus network to get around.
- Economists for Brexit has published a report (pdf) challenging the claims made by the Treasury in its study saying leaving the EU could reduce GDP by 6.2%. Professor Patrick Minford, the report’s author, said:
The Treasury study of Brexit options uses methods that have no foundation in economic theory. The gravity mode used by the Treasury for trade and FDI [foreign direct investment] is simply not designed to work for major economic events, such as Brexit. To find out what will happen with Brexit, one needs to use a proper underlying, structural, model. The standard trade model we use is exactly that and the results that come from it are totally at variance with the Treasury’s results, which are consequently unsound.
Updated
And Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has responded to Iain Duncan Smith’s speech with a similar line to Labour’s. She said:
This is the man who cut tax credits, who cut disability benefits and who pushed half a million more children into absolute poverty. So we will take no lessons on social justice from the minister for foodbanks.
He ignored the main Brexit problem everybody else is talking about – the big hit on jobs and wages that most economists predict. Working families have still not fully recovered from the economic crisis, so the last thing they need now is another hit on jobs and pay.
Labour says that it is “ludicrous” for Iain Duncan Smith to pose as a champion of the poor. In a statement on Duncan Smith’s speech (see 1.17pm), Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow minister without portfolio, said:
Working people will take Iain Duncan Smith’s warnings about social injustice with a large pinch of salt. After all, this is the Tory minister behind the bedroom tax and the man who opposed the introduction of the minimum wage and once warned that increased workers’ rights through the European Union would lead to ‘turmoil on the streets’.
We should take no lectures from IDS when it comes to the pressures facing schools and hospitals. It is his Tory government that is putting at risk the public services we rely on – under the Tories schools are facing budget cuts, over 3.5 million people are on the English waiting list and it has got harder to see a GP. And let’s also remember that leaving the EU would mean less money for local schools and hospitals.
Iain Duncan Smith's EU speech - Summary
Here are the key points from Iain Duncan Smith’s speech earlier.
- Duncan Smith urged people to vote to leave the EU for the sake of the poor.
My plea to better off Britons who have done well in recent years is to consider using their vote in the referendum to vote for a better deal for people who haven’t enjoyed the same benefits as them. Because the EU, despite its grand early intentions, has become a friend of the haves rather than the have-nots.
- He said the EU membership was particularly bad for people on low wages, because of the impact of immigration.
The construction of the Olympic Park was a powerful illustration of the way in which immigrants undercut UK workers through their willingness to endure family-unfriendly living conditions. Visiting job centres in East London at the time I met both skilled and unskilled workers who struggled to get work on the site. When I asked why they said that people from Eastern Europe, often living in bedsits, without UK housing and family costs, hugely underbid them for their work. Since then those stories have been borne out by the facts. Despite the all the statements about the Olympic Park helping British workers, we now know that nearly half of all the jobs on the site went to foreign nationals ...
The downward pressure on wages is a trend will only get worse if we continue to have open borders with the EU - and would get most difficult in a recession. A Bank of England study in December 2015 concluded: ‘the biggest effect is in the semi/unskilled services sector, where a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants is associated with a 2 percent reduction in pay’.
This significantly affects British workers - especially those on low wages.
- He said immigration made it harder for people to buy a home.
- He said that he was worried growing inequality, and that EU membership could make it worse.
We are at a point in the development of the world economy where, if we are not careful, we are going to see an explosion of have-nots. We are going to see increasing divides between people who have a home of their own and those who are, to coin a phrase, at the back of a queue – a lengthening queue - to ever get on the housing ladder. People who have jobs that aren’t threatened by automation and people who live in the shadow of the impact of technological innovation. People who benefit from the immigration of cheap nannies and baristas and labourers – and people who can’t find work because of uncontrolled immigration.
I have always wanted people to be able to own their own home but that gets more difficult particularly for young people through our inability to control the scale of migration.
- He said he hoped a vote for Brexit would prompt the EU to reform.
I hope I’ve persuaded you that leaving the EU is in the clear interests of social justice within Britain. Let me end by saying I I also think it could also advance social justice across the whole continent. A vote to Leave by the British people might be the shock to the EU system that is so desperately needed. Perhaps I’m being unrealistic. The EU does not have a good track record of changing course after member states have voted against the EU project in referenda. But Brexit – coming after the Greek crisis, after so much impossibly high youth unemployment, after the election of so many extremist parties –should be the moment when Brussels finally decides to give member states more freedom to design economic, social and migration policies that reflect the democratic will and particular needs of each individual state. Given we are so uninfluential inside the EU, our maximum moment of influence might be in leaving.
Nick Gibb's statement - Summary
- Nick Gibb, the schools minister, said there would be an inquiry into the “rogue marker” who had leaked a Sats paper to a journalist before it was taken by pupils. In a Commons statement responding to the Guardian’s revelations, he said the paper had mistakenly been uploaded to a secure internet site yesterday where it had been accessed by 93 markers. Gibb said he was grateful to the Guardian for not publishing the paper. He said Pearson, the contractor dealing with the test, had been asked to investigate two issues.
First, how did the material come to be uploaded onto the secure site in error? This was clearly a mistake which should not have been possible. Second, I have asked that all records are examined and all information interrogated so that the culprit who leaked this sensitive information can be identified.
A Department for Education source blamed the leak on a “rogue marker”. In the Commons Gibb said the leak came from someone opposed to the tests.
There are some who don’t necessarily agree with us that it it important to raise academic standards. And so somebody decided that their own opinions were more important than their professional integrity and decided to breach the trust that they had been given, to breach the confidentiality contact they had entered into, and leaked one of those tests to the media.
- Gibb said the tests were going ahead because there was no evidence the leaked paper got seen by any pupils.
We have no evidence to suggest that any sensitive information entered the public domain before children started taking the test today and the tests are going ahead as planned.
- Nic Dakin, the shadow schools minister, said the error was just “the latest in a sorry line of chaos in primary assessment
The government has let down parents at every step of the way. Today’s debacle is just the latest in a sorry line of chaos in primary assessment.
For months now, ministers have obsessed over a plan for forced academisation, a plan that was never about raising standards and was self-evidently flawed from the start.
Parents didn’t want or need forced academisation - they made that extremely clear and played a key role in forcing the government into a humiliating U-turn on this policy last week, which was confirmed by the Secretary of State in her humiliating statement yesterday.
- Christine Blower, the NUT’s general secretary, has accused Gibb of “missing the point”.
Christine Blower: "Nick Gibb is missing the point entirely. While leaked test papers are a problem they are only the tip of the iceberg."
— NUT (@NUTonline) May 10, 2016
Updated
Gibb says all the 93 people who saw the leaked paper on a secure site were markers subject to confidentiality agreements.
He says that if the person who leaked it was trying to get it into the public domain, they failed.
Labour’s Julie Elliott says standards improved under Labour. She challenges Gibb to apologise again for the latest leak.
Gibb says the Standards and Testing Agency, which oversees the Sats test, has made relatively minor changes, in response to concerns raised. It is a very professional agency, she says.
Gibb says all the government’s surveys have shown that schools are confident of teaching the new curriculum.
Gibb says the government does not apologise for setting higher standards. A deliberate decision was taken to respond to more challenging circumstances in the world.
Labours Helen Goodman asks Gibb a grammar question from the new tests.
Gibb says he has learnt from bitter experience not to reply to questions like this.
He is referring to this incident.
Labour’s Andrew Gwynne says Gibb must move “to the bottom of the class” and “must try harder”. He asks Gibb to apologise to parents and teachers, and to ensure MPs this will not happen a third time.
Gibb says he apologised for the leak of the key stage 1 spelling test, when a paper was wrongly distributed. But in this case there is no evidence the test has been compromised. The test will go ahead, he says.
As this is the first year where the new, more demanding national curriculum is being assessed, there were always going to be challenges.
But he says some people do not agree with the government that it is important to raise academic standards. So that is why someone decided to leak one of these tests to the media, he says.
- Gibb claims Sats paper was deliberately leaked by someone opposed to the government’s new testing regime.
Labour’s Diana Johnson says the Department for Education should be put in special measures.
Gibb says, after the leak of the key stage 1 paper last month, and after the latest leak, the department acted quickly.
Here is my colleague Richard Adams’ take on Nick Gibb’s statement.
Nick Gibb's statement in brief: Pearson, Pearson, Pearson, small local difficulty, rogue marker, Pearson.
— Richard Adams (@RichardA) May 10, 2016
Gibb responds to Dakin with a summary of the government’s record on testing.
He says the government is committed to raising standards.
This was always going to be a challenging month as schools had to get used to a new testing system, he says.
Nic Dakin, the shadow schools minister, says the latest leak took place after the government announced a U-turn over forced academisation.
And he says it is the lastest in what has been a series of chaotic events in primary school testing.
He says these events have damaged parents’ confidence in the testing system.
To adapt Oscar Wilde, to lose one test looks like a mistake. To lose two looks like carelessness.
He says the Department for Education has lost control of the tests it is responsible for.
He says the National Union of Teachers have said they do not see how schools can be assessed on such shaky data. He demands an assurance that schools will not be forced to become academies on the basis of the results of these tests.
And he challenges Nick Gibb to apologise.
Gibb says a survey has shown that more pupils enjoy taking tests than do not.
He says that testing is a vital part of education.
And he reaffirms his claim that the key stage 2 test process is working properly.
Nick Gibb's statement on Sats test leak
Nick Gibb, the schools minister, is making a Commons statement about the leak of a Sats test.
Here is our story about it.
Gibb says the paper was posted on a secure site in error.
While it was there, it was accessed by 93 markers.
He says he wants an inquiry into who leaked the paper.
He is statisfied that Pearson is taking this seriously.
There is no evidence that sensitive information entered the public domain before children started taking their tests today.
He says he is grateful to the journalist who reported the story for not publishing the paper.
Teachers and schools should be confident about the test being undertaken properly, he says.
Duncan Smith says he thinks Britain is better off facing the challenges of the future by controlling its response to those changes itself. That is better than having to work with 27 other countries that may have different priorities.
He says the UK will not be leaving Europe. It will be voting to leave the EU. We will continue to be friends, he says, and will continue to cooperate on trade and security.
He says he is “fed up” with British governments going to Brussels to carp. He would like Britain to have a much better relationship with other EU countries.
And that’s it. The Q&A is over.
I will post a summary of the speech soon.
Duncan Smith says he voted against the Maastricht Treaty because the extension of qualified majority voting would lead to the UK being outvoted. At the time he said that eventually Britain would have to decide whether to stay in the EU or leave.
At that point he was not in favour of leaving the EU, he says.
But, after the Maastricht and Nice and Lisbon treaties, the EU has changed so much it has got to the point where it would be best to leave, he says.
Duncan Smith says the Bloomberg speech agenda would have given the UK a very strong, special status in the EU.
But none of that was achieved. David Cameron got a “compromise”. And it is a compromise that satisfies no one and leaves us weaker, he says.
Q: Are your warning about Turkey an example of “Project Fear”?
Duncan Smith says membership of countries like Turkey to the EU is “coming down the tracks”.
Once they are a member of the EU, the UK will have no right to withhold access to Turks.
So the entry of Turkey and the others is part of the debate. We are not just voting on what the EU is like now. We have to consider what it will be like in the future. Future changes will make it “much worse”, he says.
Duncan Smith says the European court of justice has become supreme in many areas, including domestic policy.
As a minister you are told that if you ignore EU rules, the European commission says it will take you to the ECJ. He says this has happened to him as a minister.
If you ignore the ECJ rulings, you get fined.
Duncan Smith says the UK has a rising birth rate. So it is less in need of migrant labour than some other EU countries.
He says, because the UK has no control over EU migration, it has had to tighten up massively on migration from outside the EU.
Duncan Smith says most of the jobs going to immigrants are unskilled jobs.
He says it is wrong to claim that most immigrants are taking high-skilled jobs.
He says immigrants have pushed down wages. And because they have low housing costs, and no family costs in the UK, they can work for less then their UK counterparts.
Duncan Smith says it is not extreme to want democratic government in your own country. He says those in the Remain campaign accusing him of being “extreme” are being wrong.
IDS says Alan Johnson has 'demeaned' himself by describing him as an extremist on the EU. 'It is not extreme to want your democracy back'
— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) May 10, 2016
And he predicts that the EU will want to sign a free trade deal with the UK “straight away”.
Updated
Q: Cameron said last week voters should not worry about Turkey joining the EU. He said Turkey was not on the ballot paper.
Duncan Smith says it is on the ballot paper. Originally Cameron said he wanted Turkey to join the EU. The Turks are going to get visa-free travel in the EU. And Turkey has been told it will get accelerated access to EU membership, in return for the deal it has struck with the EU over migrants, he says.
Q: Do you blame David Cameron or Angela Merkel for Britain not getting the migration brake?
Duncan Smith says the lesson he learnt from what happened when Cameron tried to get Germany to agree to the UK having an emergency brake that would allow it to halt EU migration was that the EU will not change.
Q: Cameron is one of life’s ‘haves’. Do you think he understands the pressures migration is causing for the ‘have-nots’.
Duncan Smith says that in his speech he has set out the evidence about how immigration is harming those at the bottom. Those are facts, he says.
But he says that he thinks Cameron does understand those concerns.
The key point is to get controlled migration, he says.
Duncan Smith's Q&A
Duncan Smith is now taking questions.
Q: You signed off on the welfare break, and you campaigned on it at the election. But now you are telling the Sun it was a German stitch-up.
Duncan Smith says at the time of the election the renegotiation process had not really begun.
He says he was in favour of David Cameron’s Bloomberg speech, and his renegotiation.
He says if Cameron had achieved a genuine change in Britain’s relationship with the EU, he would have favoured remaining.
But this did not happen, he says.
Duncan Smith says Brexit could promote social justice across the EU
Duncan Smith says he hopes a vote for Brexit could advance “social justice” across the whole EU.
Let me end by saying I I also think it could also advance social justice across the whole continent. A vote to Leave by the British people might be the shock to the EU system that is so desperately needed.
Perhaps I’m being unrealistic. The EU does not have a good track record of changing course after member states have voted against the EU project in referenda. But Brexit – coming after the Greek crisis, after so much impossibly high youth unemployment, after the election of so many extremist parties –should be the moment when Brussels finally decides to give member states more freedom to design economic, social and migration policies that reflect the democratic will and particular needs of each individual state. Given we are so uninfluential inside the EU, our maximum moment of influence might be in leaving.
Duncan Smith says the EU is a political project, not an economic one.
This is the key point. No matter what those who want to remain say about the EU as a market place, the reality is that it is first and foremost a political project; the aim of which is the creation of an overarching federal power, above the nation states. It is the reason why economic common sense cannot prevail and why many Greeks are now living in third world conditions, Italian banks are becoming insolvent and terrible levels of youth unemployment have become, for the EU a terrible price worth paying.
Yet outside of the EU an independent Britain can design migration, agricultural, environmental, budgetary and trade policies that the rest of Europe seems sadly incapable of agreeing upon.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, is in the middle of his EU referendum speech and he has argued that EU membership may have helped the rich, but it has hurt the poor.
If the EU is working for Germany, for banks, for big corporates and for the public affairs companies with large lobbying operations in Brussels, the EU isn’t working for over regulated small businesses and lower-paid and lower-skilled Britons. They now have to compete with millions of people from abroad for jobs and a wage rise. The Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee reported that for every 100 migrants employed twenty three UK born workers would have been displaced.
The construction of the Olympic Park was a powerful illustration of the way in which immigrants undercut UK workers through their willingness to endure family-unfriendly living conditions. Visiting job centres in East London at the time I met both skilled and unskilled workers who struggled to get work on the site. When I asked why they said that people from Eastern Europe, often living in bedsits, without UK housing and family costs, hugely underbid them for their work. Since then those stories have been borne out by the facts. Despite the all the statements about the Olympic Park helping British workers, we now know that nearly half of all the jobs on the site went to foreign nationals.
I will cover more from the speech soon.
For various domestic reasons, I’m late starting today. I’m sorry about that.
