Business Secretary Vince Cable has insisted a cap on European Union migrants is “not going to happen” and accused the Tories of being in a “panic” over immigration.
Referring to previous periods of heightened tensions, including Enoch Powell’s notorious “rivers of blood” speech, he warned politicians they had a responsibility to “give the facts” and not “resort” to populist tactics.
It comes after party leader Nick Clegg pledged to block any fresh attempts to curb EU immigration, insisting “this is where we draw the line”.
Mr Cable told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “There is a bigger picture here. 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.
“The responsibility of politicians in this situation when people are getting anxious is to try to reassure them and give the facts, not panic and resort to populist measures that do harm.”
He added: “The 75,000 cap is illegal and impossible to implement in any event. I think what’s happening here, the Conservatives are in a bit of a panic because of Ukip reacting in the way they are.
“It’s not going to help them, I think, politically, but it’s doing a great deal of damage. The responsibility of politicians in this situation is to look at the facts and the simple point is that there is very little evidence of benefit tourism for people coming from Eastern Europe.
“All the evidence suggests that they put far more into the economy in terms of tax than they take out in benefits.”
Asked if there was a crisis within the Coalition on the issue, he said: “There is quite a lot of tension around this issue, I don’t pretend that it isn’t.
“The fact is that we have a job to do to sort out the economy. We are business-like.
“I think people wouldn’t forgive us if we walked away from our responsibilities but there are big differences over fairness, over tax and over immigration and we will argue our corner.”
Mr Cable was also critical of the Home Office clampdown on student visas, warning it was harming international business relations.
A No 10 source said: “We need to learn the lessons from Labour’s mistakes, to put in place more robust transitional controls in future and, in the meantime, to make sure people can come here to work but not just to claim benefits.’