PM is urged to sack Cable over immigration rift as Lib Dem says Cameron's speech

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376651/Coalition-divided-Vince-Cable-erupts-David-Camerons-immigration-speech.html

PM is urged to sack Cable over immigration rift as Lib Dem says Cameron's speech 'will inflame extremism'

David Cameron was forced to brush aside Tory demands to sack Vince Cable last night after he launched an unprecedented assault on the Prime Minister over immigration.
The Liberal Democrat Business Secretary triggered the biggest coalition rift to date as he accused Mr Cameron of inflaming extremism ahead of local elections next month.
In a major speech to party activists yesterday, the Prime Minister said 'the largest influx of people Britain has ever had' had caused 'discomfort and disjointedness' in many communities.
But Mr Cable dismissed the tough stance on immigration as 'very unwise' and claimed that Mr Cameron's pledge to reduce the number of migrants to the levels of the 1990s was not government policy.
He said: 'The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement. It is Tory party policy only.
'I do understand there is an election coming, but talk of mass immigration risks inflaming the extremism to which he and I are both strongly opposed.'
Senior Conservatives were appalled by the Business Secretary's open defiance and said it was unheard of for a Cabinet minister to launch such an attack and remain in his job.
In a clear reference to Mr Cable, the Prime Minister said critics of his speech were 'off beam'.
But Mr Cable appears unsackable, since his departure to the backbenches would threaten the stability of the coalition.

Tory sources insisted that the Prime Minister would not retaliate and suggested Mr Cable had helped Tory fortunes ahead of local and devolved elections on May 5 by reminding voters of his party's unpopular stance on immigration.
Almost one in eight people living in the UK were born abroad, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
The figures show that the proportion of the population born overseas has almost doubled in two decades to more than 11 per cent.

Last June, the population was 61.14million, including 6.97million people born overseas. This proportion – 11.4 per cent – is the highest on record. It is almost double the 6.7 per cent recorded in 1991 when the foreign-born population stood at 3.85 million.
During Labour's 13 years in power, three million foreigners joined the population and in total, just under seven million people living in Britain were immigrants.
The immigration row prompted the first major clash between Mr Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg.
Although he saw the Prime Minister's speech in advance, the Deputy Prime Minister's aides said he would not have used similar language when discussing immigration.

They also cast doubt on Mr Cameron's commitment to cut net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands a year – even though it appears in government documents published alongside the Queen's Speech last year.
'That's a Tory aspiration,' said one source close to Mr Clegg. 'We agree we want to bring levels of immigration down, but we are not going to be dogmatic about a number. We don't have the same views on immigration.'
The Prime Minister, addressing Tory activists in Romsey, Hampshire, insisted Britain needed 'good immigration, not mass immigration'. He flatly rejected Mr Cable's claim that he was inflaming extremism, describing his position on immigration as 'moderate, sensible and reasonable'.

Communities had been put under pressure by incomers unable to speak English and unwilling to integrate, he argued, which had 'created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods'. He added: 'This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.'
Mr Cameron accused Labour of inflaming the debate by 'talking tough' but opening Britain's borders to unlimited immigration, a move which he said had 'created space' for extremist parties such as the BNP to flourish.
He set out measures including an annual cap on migrants from outside the EU, a big reduction in the number of student visas and welfare reforms to prevent British workers idling on the dole and allowing migrants to snap up jobs.
 
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Former Conservative chairman Lord Tebbit said Mr Cable should leave the Cabinet unless he withdrew his attack on the Prime Minister's remarks.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'It is a perverse situation where we have members of the Cabinet challenging what the Prime Minister is saying on government policy.
'You either choose to be on the backbenches and speak your mind, or join the Government and accept collective responsibility. Vince Cable is trying to have his cake and eat it.'
Former Labour home secretary David Blunkett rejected Mr Cameron's claim that his party had 'created the space' for the rise of the BNP and other extremist parties by failing to rein in mass immigration.
He added: 'Are we in the middle of an election campaign? Yes, we are. Has David Cameron pressed the right buttons for the majority of people in this country? I would say, yes, he has. Is he right about most of what he said? Yes.'
However, Mr Blunkett said 5,200 jobs in the Border Agency were being lost and language teaching for migrants being 'demolished' by cuts. 'All these things are completely contradictory to much of what David Cameron actually said.'
Ipsos Mori published a poll last night suggesting that three-quarters of Britons believe that immigration is a problem. And 57 per cent of Britons support the Government's annual cap of 20,700 workers coming into Britain from countries outside the EU.