Austerity...

So, what is a champagne socialist Red? 

And why is it an insult. 

At the time, different countries applied different transitional rules allowed under the terms of the agreement, 7 nations including the UK applied no transition period, most countries applied a transition period of two years, and no countries applied the full 7 year period allowed under rule, only France applied a 5 year transition period.

The MAXIMUM period of transitional rights is 5 Years, which can be extended to a further 2 years if there is firm evidence or proof that the arrival of migrant workers has significantly disrupted the labour market. In the case of the UK this was not the case, therefore the maximum transition that Blair could have imposed was just 5 years.

So all the European workers did not all come here in 2004, they spread out over different nations, and other than in a small pocket of Eastern England, they posed no problems and were beneficial to our economy and growth.

But the key point here is that Tory Apologists are attempting ( but failing ) to convince posters that Freedom Of Movement was all the fault of a Labour government, when it was not. Secondly, you are attempting to suggest that Blair could have stopped Freedom Of Movement, which he could not, and the only brake which the government could have put on, was to delay by 5 years, something that just one other EU state applied.

I think that SOME individuals have suggested it was perhaps the wrong decision in hindsight, but the Labour Party has never officialy suggested that it was wrong.

I mean, would those individuals who believe that Blair ought have imposed a transitional period, would also agree that John Major should never have agreed to Freedom Of Movement ?

No change there then 

It was a mistake for two reasons.
1. The massive opportunity it gave to that producer of pure garbage, the Tory propaganda machine.
2. It was also a mistake in terms of the unexpected serious economic problems that lay ahead. As victims of IFM, the garbage yet powerful Tory propaganda machine for which Labour had no answer, it became politically beneficial to cross it off as a mistake. 

Prior to David Cameron promising a referendum on EU membership, the issue of EU membership WAS NOT high on the agenda of issues which concerned the electorate, and neither was EU migrant workers.

Cameron promised an EU referendum, not to please the electorate, but in an attempt to put a halt to the civil war in the Conservative Party.

The burning issues of the day as far as the 2010 general election was concerned were The Economy, Recession and recovery, the aftermath of The Financial Crisis, Jobs, the deficit and how to deal with it.

There was a perception, partly peddled by the Conservatives, that the WORLD WIDE financial crisis, and the WORLD WIDE recession was somehow all Gordon Browns fault, one of the three biggest political lies of the 21st century, along with the £350 Million for the NHS and Labours VAT Bombshell.

Enough voters believed the lies which the Tories peddled, and it allowed the Tories to scrape to power with a lot of help from The Lib Dems.

There is a cheap way and a difficult way to achieve growth. The difficult way is scientific progress which feeds into technology and engineering. The cheap way is to do a  Liz Truss and borrow to pay for government spending.