Mail EU Passport Scare Debunked

Anyone thinking that the pack of lies peddled yesterday by the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dare was going to be the last word in frightening the Daily Mail’s readers over migration from Romania found that, as the New Year was rung in across the EU, it was merely a warm-up act for the main event, as today’s paper has brought an escalation in the rhetoric.

And today’s new scare story is all about passports: “Hundreds of thousands from outside EU could head for UK in passport loophole” screams the headline. And, as the man said, there’s more: “Bulgaria and Romanian offering passports to non-EU citizens ... Romania has offered citizenship to four million Moldovans ... Meanwhile Bulgaria has handed 90,000 Macedonians passports”.

This means only one thing: “All will be able to come and work in the UK under EU rules”. Yes, those dastardly garlic crunching foreigners are sending them all to take our houses and claim benefits! As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. But a little examination of those pesky facts – the ideal disinfectant when confronted by an onslaught of the Dacre filth – shows the real story.

Moldova was part of Romania until 1940. So many of its citizens are ethnic Romanians. This is rather like the ability of those with Irish grandparents to claim Irish citizenship – you can see the chapter and verse right HERE – and of course an Irish passport gives its holder the right to “come and work” in the UK, or indeed any of the other 20-odd EU member states.

So when the Mail tries to frighten its readers with “Hungary has granted EU passports to those in neighbouring countries. There are only two conditions – a direct ancestor who was a Hungarian citizen and a basic knowledge of the language”, they are describing something more strict than the requirement for an Irish passport (there is no requirement to speak English or Gaelic).

And of course it’s a bit late to start whining about Hungary, whose citizens have been able to live and work in the UK for several years now. You haven’t seen so many of them? That may be because their preferred destination would be countries with which they have historical ties – mainly Austria – and those where they speak the same language – so mainly Germany.

That mere detail does not detain the Mail, and nor does the ability of many born outside the UK to claim British nationality and thereby obtain a British passport. This is just another rabble-rousing scare story: yesterday’s effort claiming there were plane and coach loads of Romanians on their way has been debunked, but Dacre has clearly got his blood up, and so the tide will be unremitting.

Daily Mail: demonising foreigners to sell papers since 1933. No change there, then.