Vince Cable compared David Cameron’s immigration rhetoric to Enoch Powell.

Evening Standard/London

Senior Liberal Democrats have admitted that Vince Cable was “unhelpful” in making comments that appeared to compare David Cameron’s immigration rhetoric to Enoch Powell’s notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech.

The concession to the Business Secretary’s critics came as furious Tory MPs and ministers called for him to be sacked from the Cabinet for his “offensive” remarks.

“He should resign or be sacked if he feels so strongly opposed to government policy,” said Shipley Tory MP Philip Davies. “Cable is happy to draw his fat Cabinet salary and should therefore accept that it comes with collective responsibility.

“I have nothing but contempt for him and his typical Lib-Dem duplicity.”

Cabinet minister Grant Shapps compared Cable with an elderly relative who is tolerated for Christmas.

Vince Cable’s a bit like an old uncle at Christmas,” the Conservative chairman told the Evening Standard. “Slightly rude, does not always make sense – but he is part of the extended family so you live with it.”

The outburst followed provocative remarks by Cable in a TV interview, in which he criticised the prime minister for trying to cap immigration from the EU and pointedly recalled both Powell’s 1968 speech, which warned of bloody violence if immigration was not curbed, and “panic over Jewish immigration” a century ago.

Tory MP Nigel Mills said Cable’s comments made “it very hard to sit around the Cabinet table”.

Although Lib-Dem sources defended Cable, and denied that he had compared Cameron to Powell, an official party source conceded: “It’s unhelpful on all sides to bring that to the fore. But the reaction has been utterly unhelpful too.”

Although Downing Street refused to criticise Cable, sources said there was fury in No 10.

Mills, a member of the Immigration Bill Committee, said Cable’s remarks were “unacceptable” and showed he was “out of touch” with voters’ legitimate concerns.

“This is unacceptable,” he said. “I think Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.”

He said comparing the prime minister to Powell, who was widely regarded as stirring racial unrest, was “a ridiculous thing to have done”.

But Cable’s ally Lord Oakeshott tweeted that the comparison was justified. “Both played on fear,” he said.

The tensions exploded after Cameron announced benefit changes to discourage non-workers from coming to the EU when Romania and Bulgaria get free movement rights in the New Year. The PM also said he would make curbs on free movement a precondition for countries joining the EU.

Cable told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday: “We periodically get these immigration panics in the UK.

“I remember going back to Enoch Powell and rivers of blood and all that. If you go back a century, it was panics over Jewish immigrants coming from Eastern Europe.”
A pledge by Britain’s government to slow immigration could make the economy 11% smaller by 2060 and taxpayers would have to fund higher public spending, a study by a leading research institute showed yesterday.

Immigration has become a hot issue ahead of elections in 2015 and the end of restrictions on workers from Romania and Bulgaria on January 1.

Prime Minister David Cameron promised in the run-up to the last election in 2010 to slash net migration to the “tens of thousands” by 2015, down from the 200,000 a year expected under current trends.

But a halving of net migration over the period to 2060 would have “strong negative effects” on the economy, said the new study, published by the independent National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

“The level of both GDP (gross domestic product) and GDP per person fall during the simulation period by 11.0% and 2.7% respectively,” it said.

Furthermore, lower numbers of immigrants, who tend to be young, would add significantly to public spending, as a share of the economy, in order to care for a generally older population.

“To keep the government budget balanced, the labour income tax rate has to be increased by 2.2 percentage points in the lower migration scenario,” the report said.

That meant net wages would be 3.3% lower in 2060 than if immigration flows remain unchanged, it added.

Under pressure from the anti-immigration UK Independence Party, Cameron has said he wants to restrict the relocation of migrants from poorer European Union states to richer ones, challenging one of the central tenets of the EU.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats share power with Cameron’s Conservatives, said curbing immigrant numbers would damage the economy.