The calamitous decision by Tony Blair that sealed our fate in Europe

One of the exercises that we sometimes do in the Blair years class that I co-teach at King’s College London is to list all the failures of Tony Blair’s premiership. The last time we did it, the failure to reform the welfare system came top and the Iraq war wasn’t listed.

If we do it again this coming term, it may be that another issue will feature highly – the decision in 2004 to allow free movement from day one for the citizens of the eight countries that joined the European Union that year.

Government papers released by the National Archives today show the decision in a new light. It was a momentous decision that has often featured in our classes. Most of the former ministers, officials and special advisers who come to give their account of the New Labour government accept that the wave of immigration, especially from Poland, in the following years had not been foreseen. It boosted the UK economy, but it also influenced the EU referendum.

The general view is that, if the government had restricted arrivals from new member states initially, as France and Germany did, Britain might still be a member of the EU.

The new papers published today reveal that the decision was more contested than we thought. We had thought that there had been little discussion of the possibility of restricting free movement, mainly because, as Ed Balls told us, “we didn’t think they would come”. He was then Gordon Brown’s chief adviser, and this was the Treasury view. This coincided with Blair’s liberal instinct, so there seemed no question of the UK imposing temporary restrictions.

However, the new papers reveal that both Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, argued for restrictions. Straw urged a delay of six months, saying that, “if we do not think this through now”, the government could be forced to suspend the right to work for the new EU nationals “in the least propitious of circumstances”.

Prescott supported him, saying he was “extremely concerned about the additional pressures they could bring to bear on social housing”.

So it seems that serious consideration was given to the decision, with two heavyweight cabinet ministers opposing it. But David Blunkett, the home secretary, and no liberal on the subject of immigration, was opposed to restrictions, saying that the economy needed the “flexibility and productivity of migrant labour”. With the prime minister and chancellor aligned, he got his way.

The more we find out about the inner workings of the last Labour government, the higher Straw rises in my estimation. He was an outstanding minister of exceptional judgement. He was there, on the brink of military action in Iraq, supporting the case for war but asking Blair if he was absolutely sure that he should go ahead. And here he is again, sensing the political dangers and asking the right questions.

One of the problems that ministers faced was the poor quality of information about migrant workers. The Home Office thought it could keep track of new arrivals with a workers registration scheme, but the National Archives papers reveal that the scheme produced inaccurate numbers, because it was poorly enforced and excluded self-employed workers. It therefore took more than a year for the government to realise that the numbers arriving were well in excess of the 13,000 a year that the Home Office had estimated.

The new papers make that “what if” of the Blair government a more realistic exercise: if Straw and Prescott had prevailed, could Brexit have been avoided? Previously, this had seemed an interesting enough question, but not a very plausible scenario. Now it seems quite possible that history could have taken a different course.

Of course, like most counterfactual history, this alternative timeline soon gets lost in too many unknowables: would the pressure to leave the EU have continued to grow after a narrow referendum win for Remain? Would Nigel Farage still be scaring the wits out of the main parties?

But two things we can learn: one is that the government needs good-quality information about the labour market – something that is still lacking. The other is that Blair should have listened to Straw and Prescott more often.