The Tories and Schengen

It is always pleasantly surprising to see pro-European Tories fighting back against their party's all-consuming Euroscepticism. Last weekend saw Christopher Beazley MEP joining his new colleague Saj Karim in supporting the EU Reform Treaty. More unusual, however, was John Purvis's recent letter to the Financial Times supporting British accession to the Schengen free movement area.

At present, the UK and Ireland are the only two EU members to not have signed the Schengen Agreement: both have an opt-out. As islands, who do not have land borders with mainland Europe, the two countries share a Common Travel Area with no systematic border controls between them. Ireland is thus unable to join the agreement without dissolving this agreement with the UK, and incurring border controls at its land border with Northern Ireland. However, the UK remains reluctant to surrender its own border controls and work permit system. Therefore, while the UK and Ireland cooperate closely within the Schengen arrangements on matters such as police cooperation, judicial cooperation, and tackling organised crime, there are no imminent plans to be full members of Schengen.

In Mr Purvis's words, however, "any business person looking to the Schengen market would be crazy to site his head office in the UK. His staff would spend most of their time wrecking their productivity targets in disorganised queues waiting for the four available HM Revenue and Customs operatives in their fancy new uniforms to let them cross the "UK Border" - emblazoned on the wall behind them. If it is bad enough for UK and EU citizens, it is even worse for American, Chinese, any other business people and tourists - "guests" to our country."

It finishes with "once in the Schengen area (and that is now well controlled) they will next year have over 25 countries they can visit without hindrance - but not the UK. Be warned, foreigner!"

All of this is a far cry from William Hague's claims that British membership of Schengen would see us lose control of our borders and be flooded with immigrants!