Nick Clegg is wrong on EU benefits - his words and actions don't match up. We might save peanuts, but we lose so much more..

So, all these EU citizens from poorer countries coming here and claiming benefits. A huge problem? Actually, not so much. My Liberal Democrat Voice co-editor was bang on the money yesterday when he said:

So, for all the uproar and shouting, 94% of overseas nationals entering the UK do not claim out-of-work benefits within six months – c.6% do, compared to c.13% of UK natives. That’s not nothing, but it puts the issue into perspective, doesn’t it?

That’s also the most charitable explanation I can come up with for Nick Clegg’s decision to go along with the Tory proposals, describing them as “sensible and reasonable”. If he’d said the proposals were “blatantly populist but unlikely to have much effect beyond further stoking the public perception that immigrants are to blame for all our ills” he’d have been closer to the mark.

 Regular readers will be familiar with my "Lock me in a cupboard with a bottle of gin" list of things that I really cannot stand about this coalition. Things already on it include time limiting Employment and Support Allowance, the Bedroom Tax, secret courts and cuts to legal aid. There is, of course, also a list of fantastic stuff we've done, like the Scotland Act, ending child detention for immigration purposes, giving extra money to disadvantaged kids in school having a health minister who knows what he's doing about mental health and a pensions minister who has given the biggest cash rise in the state pension and put them on a fairer and more secure footing. But every time something else goes on the Gin List, the glow of the Good List diminishes.

I'm not saying that Santa Claus will be putting a lump of coal in Nick's stocking this Christmas, but I am well displeased with him for agreeing to Cameron's benefit restrictions. It will save the UK peanuts, but we will lose so much more. If you look at the big picture, what you see is the liberal voice you thought you could depend on to challenge the awful UKIP/DailyMail/Tory anti immigrant rhetoric ceding ground. It's all very well for Nick to say on Call Clegg that he's speaking for the majority of British people, but if the majority of British people are wrong, misinformed and have a view that's contrary to our core values,he should be challenging them to think differently. He should be pointing out where their facts are wrong and giving them evidence to the contrary.

What he shouldn't be doing is giving the forces of xenophobia and conservatism the sort of shot in the arm that was in his email to members last night:

Let others flirt with the prospect of European exit in order to pander to the right. We remain passionately committed to staying in the EU for the sake of British jobs, security and influence in the world.

That does not mean that we are indifferent to the need to reform the EU. On the contrary, pro-Europeans urgently need to reclaim this territory. Otherwise we surrender this debate to the populists and xenophobes – the people who want to pull up the drawbridge and pull Britain out of Europe.

For that very reason I am urging all pro-Europeans to back the changes to the access European nationals have to UK benefits announced by the Coalition Government today. It is precisely because I want Britain to remain an open and outward facing nation that I am delivering these reforms.

Freedom of movement is a cornerstone of the European project and millions of Brits benefit from it every year. But years of mismanagement of the immigration system have undermined people’s confidence in it and this loss of faith must now be addressed. That is the only way to preserve this nation’s warm and welcoming nature. If we are to protect the right to move and work in the longterm, we must ensure it does not become an automatic right to claim benefits.

The trouble is he is legitimising the populists and xenophobes by ceding our ground to them. He says one thing and does another. It's just not right.He might use moderate language, but he will be associated forever with David Cameron's more bombastic approach. That is not what you want from an advocate of liberal values.

Sarah Teather, who has been consistently critical of the coalition's immigration policies, had this to say:

Once again we have an immigration policy announcement that has nothing to do with reacting to fact and everything to do with reacting to anti-immigration rhetoric-driven polling. Instead of providing political leadership and tackling immigration myths, these proposals target a problem that doesn't exist while stoking public anger and distrust towards foreigners.

Politicians are often far too afraid of talking about the benefits to the UK and its residents of being part of the EU project, which has freedom of movement at its heart. Over 2 million Brits live in other EU countries with tens of thousands of British citizens claiming benefits in their host countries, a fact many opinion formers seem to conveniently forget.

Reading today's proposals you would think that all EU nationals have unfettered access to the benefit system and that people from all over Europe are flocking to the UK in their millions in order to abuse our hospitality. Yet the reality is far different.

EU migrants already have to have to go through a process of registration before being able to claim benefits, which in itself takes several weeks and requires a fixed address. Plus the Government's own data shows that EU migrants are far less likely to be claiming out of work benefits than UK citizens.

If Nick is looking at a problem about immigration that actually needs solving, he would be well advised to look at what's happening to Isa Muaza at the behest of his cabinet colleague Mrs May. The Home Secretary is about to deport a man who is close to death, who hasn't eaten for 90 days in protest at the inhumane conditions we keep those who seek sanctuary in our country. The medics say that he isn't fit to fly, and even if he survives the journey, what's going to happen to him when he lands in Nigeria when he can't stand and can barely speak? I feel such utter shame and fury that my government is behaving so unethically and immorally.

The party is going to be debating immigration at Spring Conference in York in March. If you feel that we need to have a liberal immigration policy, please register here and come along to have your say. If your local party hasn't had its AGM, go along and stand to be a voting rep. If there are spare voting rep spaces, make sure that you organise that soon as the cut-off date will be some time in January.

Now is not the time to be running scared of the Daily Mail. There are more than enough people clamouring to put an illiberal point. Nick needs to get on the stage and loudly proclaim the liberal argument. He is not doing so at the moment. And it's abundantly clear that if he won't, nobody else will. There are vulnerable people who need us to stand up for them. If we let them down, we let ourselves down too.

BBC's story on immigration billboards misses the point

Like many Liberal Democrats - actually make that virtually all Liberal Democrats who have commented - I am absolutely fuming about the Government's plans, announced by immigration minister Mark Harper, to send billboards around 6 London boroughs with a message on them urging illegal immigrants to submit themselves for deportation - by text message, it's oh so simple.

This is the sort of thing that could lead to anyone who looks or sounds a little bit foreign, regardless of their immigration status, being harassed, or feeling uncomfortable.

The BBC reported on this today, quoting a Labour Councillor's condemnation of the plan. They didn't include our own Sarah Teather's comments that this amounted to straightforward intimidation which I reported on Liberal Democrat Voice last night.

She was every bit as livid as I am:

This is the latest in a string of Home Office announcements that are designed to make the Government look tough on immigration. But I fear that the only impact this deeply divisive form of politics will have will be to create tension and mistrust towards anyone who looks and sounds foreign.

Instead of trying to grab cheap headlines, the Government would be much better advised to tackle the real issues that undermine confidence in the immigration system. Home Office statistics show that decision making by officials is extremely poor and leads to a quarter of initial decisions to refuse asylum being overturned on appeal. And many of those people who the Government are targeting with these policies are either those whose case has been mishandled by the Home Office, or who Ministers acknowledge cannot be sent home because they wouldn’t be safe.

Vulnerable individuals who are fleeing persecution and violence are treated with disbelief and a complete lack of compassion in a rigid and inhumane system. But rather than tackling these problems head on, Ministers are choosing to once more crank up the anti-migrant rhetoric.These adverts are nothing less than straightforward intimidation and can only have bad consequences for communities like those I represent in Brent, where people from all faiths and races have mixed for decades. We will all be much poorer for it.

I am annoyed that the BBC have quoted only a Labour Councillor. That party has only shame in its record on immigration. Let's remind ourselves:

• Record backlogs of cases, leaving people in limbo for years;
• Locking up children for long periods of time in horrible places like Yarl's Wood and Dungavel;
• Telling gay people that they could just keep quiet about their sexuality;
• Cruel and degrading treatment of young asylum seekers like Janipher Maseko

At least the coalition has ended child detention but there is a huge way to go to building a fair, humane immigration system. In many ways, such as the almost impossible income requirements for many British citizens to meet if they marry someone from outside the EU, it's got even worse than it was under Labour.

I think that we need to think of some imaginative way of protesting against these billboards. On the Lib Dem Voice comment thread, Duncan Stott mentioned an idea he'd seen on Twitter - that there be a mass text in to the number at some unspecified time. 

Then we need to think about what we can do at Conference.An emergency motion seems like a good idea. There will be an immigration paper and probable row at Spring Conference, but there's no reason why we can't put forward a motion against this specific abomination now. 

Any other ideas?

Sarah Teather and Sally Hamwee contribute to report which highlights misery of new family immigration rules

The conclusions of today's All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, that the changes in the family immigration rules are unfair and causing families to be split up, should come as no surprise. It was obvious to anyone who knows even a small amount about the immigration system that they would have a terrible and heartbreaking impact.

As global communications and travel become easier, so it becomes more and more likely that people are going to fall in love with someone from a different part of the world. If that someone is from within the EU, as it was for Nick Clegg, then they have a perfect right to live together with them in this country. If, however, they are from outside the UK, the process was always a bit more complex. Last year, however, the Government introduced stringent and inflexible new income limits, based on the income of the UK spouse, which makes it much more difficult. The report shows that the number of applications refused rocketed from 1 in 10 in the first quarter of 2012 to not that far off 1 in 2 after the change came in.

The rules are particularly unfair if you are a woman married to a non EU resident. I have a friend who lives in Japan with her husband. She's not in employment because she's at home looking after her children. Her husband earns more than enough to support the family, yet there is no way they would, under the current rules, get in to live in the UK as a family. Women are doubly at a disadvantage because even if they are in work they are likely to be earning less than a man doing the same job. We're supposed to have equal pay, but as the Fawcett Society will tell you, if you compare all work, for every £1 a man takes home, a woman earns 85p. 

The BBC has a number of examples of families affected by this, including that of a British woman due to give birth next month and feared her Japanese husband could be deported at any time. It's not as though she doesn't have enough money to support the family, it's just not salaried income as she is self-employed. Another example from the report tells how a 5 month old breastfed baby was forcibly separated from its mother because of these rules. How wrong and how heartbreaking is that? I remember dealing with a similar case. At that time it was against the Home Office's own policy to separate mother and baby in those circumstances but it ignored it anyway. How can we allow such cruelty to happen? There is no need. It's not as if spouses can claim benefits anyway. 

How would you like it if you were separated from your spouse or your children in these circumstances? I have to wonder what would happen in the future if the Tory right got its way and we left the EU. There are so many people, including Nick Clegg, who are married to EU citizens. What would happen if they lost their right to live here? Leaving the EU is unlikely to happen, but maybe some people might like to think about the human consequences. 

One thing I learned from this report is the situation regarding adult dependents, like parents. If you are over here working for the NHS, paying taxes, for example, surely you should be able to bring your Mum and Dad over if they become too frail. The report identifies that people who want to do this find themselves in an impossible situation. If they fail the income requirement, they can't do it, but if they pass on the amount of income, they are then told that they can financially support their parents in the home country. That is just inhuman, reducing care for a parent to simply a matter of handing over cash for others to provide a service. In your parents' last years, surely you want to be with them, holding their hands, reading to them, chatting about shared memories, enabling them just to spend time with them, soothing their pain or distress, comforting the other parent when things get really rough. 

I'm glad to see that Liberal Democrats Sally Hamwee and Sarah Teather have been involved in the preparation of this report. Its recommendations include an independent review of the new income requirement with a view to changing it so that it doesn't adversely affect those of a particular gender, or religion or ethnicity. They also want the rules changed to enable adult UK citizens to bring their adult dependent relatives over earlier and more easily.

How would you like it if you were forcibly separated from people you love? If that is something you can empathise with, please sign the Migrants' Rights Network's letter to the Government asking them to change this deeply unfair policy. 

Danny Alexander rejects George Osborne's comments on the Philpott case

I told you the other night that Sarah Teather had condemned George Osborne's comments connecting the Philpott case to the welfare system. Some people made comments along the lines that it was only a backbencher, and no Liberal Democrat minister had said such a thing. Well, yesterday, Danny Alexander did. The BBC has the story. Danny said:

George Osborne is clearly right that there needs to be a full debate about the future of our welfare system but the Philpott case is an individual tragedy. Children have died in that case and the vile individuals who were guilty of these murders have rightly been punished by the courts but that's where I think that we should let that case lie. I wouldn't want to connect that to the much wider need to reform our welfare system.  The principle of the welfare system needs to be that people should always be better off in work than they are on benefits. That's what's motivating the big changes that we as a Coalition Government are making to the welfare system this week...

In a week where I have repeatedly called for senior Liberal Democrats to speak out when Tory ministers say things that make Liberal Democrats wince, I am happy to give credit where it's due.

Liberal Democrats should not be voting to cut benefits for the poorest, working or not

I aIways knew when we went into Coalition that there would be moments when I would need to be locked in a cupboard with a bottle of gin. Tonight is one of them when MPs vote on a proposal, which, sadly is almost assured to pass, to raise benefits by only 1% for each of the next 3 years. The current inflation rate is 2.2%. To give the poorest in society less than half of what they need to stand still is simply not acceptable.

I do realise that Nick Clegg's position is different from the Tory undeserving poor rhetoric, but it's so subtle that nobody will really notice. People will hear his line that a nurse should not have less of a rise than someone not working and think it's the same thing. If you are a nurse, your sub inflation pay increase is unlikely to mean that you won't be able to feed yourself adequately. If you are existing on benefit income alone, it most likely will, especially if you are living on your own, without children. £71 a week Job Seekers' Allowance won't go very far if your shoes spring a hole, for example.

Nick Clegg insisted that the benefit rise was paid in line with inflation last year and I'm disappointed that he has not won the battle this year. Benefits are supposed to be the minimum people need to live on. If we effectively cut their value, then what are we saying? You can have less than you need to live on? That's not on. I would rather have foregone the extra rise in the tax threshold for this year. I sort of understand that achieving it this year means that we must get to £10,000 but it's still not right.

I am also not at all convinced by Iain Duncan Smith's claim that this will cut the deficit. Surely plunging people into worse poverty will only increase poor health which has its own NHS cost implications? We all know there's a link between poverty and ill health.

If I were an MP, I'd be with Sarah Teather tonight, voting against this plan. I really don't understand why the rest of them have agreed to support it. Voters are in favour of it, but that's because they're fed the scaremongering scroungers rhetoric by the Daily Mail, not the TUC's facts.

I feel profoundly depressed and frustrated by what has been agreed to in my name in this instance. But however upset I am, I will not be taken in by Labour's rhetoric. It's not as though they have much to be proud of - remember the 10p tax and the 75p pension increase? And they introduced the iniquitous Work Capability Assessment  that's still rubbish despite Coalition improvements. They bleat about cut in the top rate of tax, conveniently forgetting that the top rate of tax for all but a month of their 13 years in office was 5% dearer and Capital Gains Tax was 10% less until the Coalition's first budget.

Being able to demolish Labour's nonsense, though, gives little comfort when I know the harsh reality that people with jobs and  without, but whose circumstances make them need benefits, face in the future.

UPDATE: John Leech is joining Sarah Teather in the "no" lobby tonight. Of course I'm pleased, but I do take exception to part of his reasoning:

I find it objectionable that the Tories are ramping up the  “Skivers Vs Strives” rhetoric to justify a benefit cut to 7 million working families.

If you are one of those 7 million, you have made your choice to work. You should be encouraged by the system, whether that be through benefits or tax breaks.  That is why I strongly support rises in the tax threshold.

The phrase I've written in bold is an appalling phrase. Does John think that everyone out of work wants it that way? If so, he's very much mistaken. Some folk just can't get work and that's not for lack of trying. And what about those who are too sick to work? Thoughtless wording, really.

Liberal Democrats should have none of this honours for departing ministers business

I just want to quickly add my voice to that of Stephen Tall, who has said that Liberal Democrats should not accept honours for departing ministers.

However sad I might be to see Nick Harvey, Paul Burstow, Sarah Teather and Andrew Stunell leave government, there's something unpleasant about that sort of political patronage. Honours are there for exceptional performance, not routine stuff.

Our Nick Harvey is in line for a knighthood and Stunell and Burstow get made Privy Councillors. I can cope with the latter a bit better as there is an advisory role where their experience might be helpful. However, membership of that august body is hardly open to the rest of us - maybe opening it up to ordinary people is something the Lord President of the Council, one Nicholas William Peter Clegg, might like to consider. At the moment it looks like a place for retired gentleministers.

So three of our departees have had stuff - you have to ask why not Sarah Teather. Jobs for the boys? Or maybe she turned them down flat - in which case, well done.

And don't get me started on Ashcroft getting on. We can't stop the Tories appointing who we like, but we can be annoyed about it. Surely their obvious honouring of someone who gives them shedloads of cash will make people draw their own conclusions....

Sorry guys - I lost

Four simple words from Willie Rennie, but quite painful to read. He tweeted this just minutes after the declaration which saw his Dunfermline Dream come to an end - for the moment at least.

I was watching the messages of support flood in on his Facebook page as I sat up on my sofa watching the results come in. I will admit to having shed a tear or several and looking at them again now and the new ones which appear makes me fill up all over again. It means so much to have these and he should be able to look back on these with huge pride at what he's achieved. The 17000 plus people who voted for him had a real affection for him.

And so they should - he's a complete whirlwind of cheery charm and engaging energy. The effort he put into his local campaigns to make the area better and in helping individuals with their private problems was incredible. He's barely stopped for since he was elected. People knew who he was and he could barely walk down a street without being recognised. What I thought was fantastic was the way that local young people not only knew who he was but felt comfortable about going up and having a chat with him.

On a day when a panicked Scotland, fearful of the Tories, grabbed onto Labour like a security blanket (not that Labour did much to protect them in the 80s), Willie's result was a fairly miraculous 8% swing from Labour. He was pretty much 9000 votes up on the 2005 - perhaps a symmetry with the 9000 people he's helped since he was elected. It just wasn't enough - and he couldn't have done any more.

One of the things you know when you start to work for an MP is that your job only lasts as long as they are in office. I'm really going to miss the local people we've dealt with over the years. I've learned never to take the word of Government departments and always to keep pushing as far as I possibly can when you know an injustice has been done. It's been the best job I've ever had and I will always remember the Team Rennie years, working with marvellous people like Cheryl, Elspeth and John Foster with happiness.

For the future, who knows, but I'm going to enjoy spending more time with my family and this blog. Anna's coming up to her last year in Primary School so maybe I'll take this year to do some stuff with her.

Although I was on my own at home last night, I really appreciated the texts, e-mails, tweets and phone calls I had from friends all over the place. I was particularly grateful for an offer to send chocolate and a phone call from a dear friend who had more than enough anxieties of her own advising me to have a glass of wine at 2.40 am after I asked the advice of Twitter as to whether this would be a bad thing.

Willie's result was not the only awful one for us. Some of my very favourite people didn't make it - Paul Holmes in Chesterfield, whose shock loss will be a huge blow to the left in the parliamentary party. What in the name of goodness the 7000+ people who voted Tory there thought they were doing, I have no idea. Chesterfield has lost a very, very good man, one I'd trust with my life. If we'd stayed in England, Paul and his wife Rae would have been guardians to Anna - that's how much I think of them. In Edinburgh, it was heartbreaking to see Kevin Lang, who gave up his job to devote himself to the campaign, and Fred Mackintosh so narrowly miss out in Edinburgh North and Leith and South. At some point, Labour voters will realise that voting Labour actually doesn't help them and I'm sure these seats will go gold then. I was also devastated that Ed Fordham, Bridget Fox and Sal Brinton all missed out narrowly too.

We now have a parliamentary party with very few women in it - by my reckoning (with Twitter's help), only Jo Swinson, Lynne Featherstone and Lorely Burt remain with Tessa Munt gaining Wells. As I write, it looks like Sarah Teather has been returned as well. Phew. It didn't look like that was going to happen a couple of hours ago. It was horrible to see Sandra Gidley go, and Susan Kramer lose to millionaire Zac Goldsmith, heartbreaking to see Julia Goldsworthy, our fantastic local government spokesperson lose by just 66 votes, for Bridget Fox and Sal Brinton to lose out in Islington and Watford, Claire Kelley in Harrogate and Sarah Carr in Herefordshire. We have some shiny new MPs in really unexpected places, but they're all men.

The result which really took the wind out of my sails was the loss of Evan Harris on Oxford West and Abingdon. How did that happen? And how vile was Nadine Dorries about it when she tweeted:

"Do my eyes and ears deceive me? Has Dr Death really lost his seat?"

I know the woman is incapable of assessing evidence rationally, but that was well out of order.

There was some good news though - for a long time the best thing for liberals to celebrate was the defeat of Peter Robinson in Belfast East by the Alliance Party's Naomi Long.

Then we beat the odious Charles Clarke in Norwich South.

The wonderful and wise David Heath is back in Somerton and Frome

And we won Burnley and Redcar with mahooooosive swings.

As Daddy Alex pointed out in this tweet:

Vote shares: Labour's worst since 1918; Tories' fourth-worst for 200 years; #LibDems' third best since 1928. Tory "victory," eh?

Mostly, though, I'm in bits today. We had our best campaign ever. I still absolutely believe in Nick Clegg. Heaven knows how we would have done without his stellar performance. We had huge numbers of people vote for us - more so than 5 years ago, but our stupid, unfair electoral system ensured that this isn't reflected. We should have around 160 seats, not 60.

A small thought on hung parliaments, though - in the places around the world, including Scotland, where hung parliaments are commonplace, there is usually some proportional system in place so that the relative power of the parties in the Parliament reflects what people want. This is not the case - the people have not been given the Parliament they asked for. We should all be outraged about that.

Some sense on MP's expenses

Common sense from Sarah Teather, as usual.

Elsewhere in Westminster, David Cameron has got all tough. Pity he couldn't have found his decisive streak when his MPs were voting against reform and to conceal their expenses.

LibDig This!