EU referendum: Row over Turkey's membership bid escalates

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Penny Mordaunt: "We're not going to be consulted... they are going to join, it's a matter of when"

David Cameron has said claims the UK would not be able to block Turkey joining the EU are "very misleading", insisting the UK retains a veto.

Earlier defence minister Penny Mordaunt said the migrant crisis would hasten talks over Turkey's EU bid and the UK was powerless to stop it.
The EU referendum was the "only chance" for the UK to have its say, she said.
But the prime minister said this was wrong and raised question marks about the Leave campaign's judgement.
It would be "literally decades" before Turkey was ready to join, Mr Cameron said.

With just over four weeks to go to the 23 June referendum, NHS boss Simon Stevens said leaving the EU would be damaging for the health service, while the prime minister has said food prices would rise sharply in the event of a vote to leave.

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Talks on Turkey joining the EU, which formally began in 1997, have stalled in recent years amid concerns about the pace of economic reform in Turkey, the security situation in the country as well as historical tensions between Turkey and Cyprus.

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David Cameron: "Britain and every other country in the EU has a veto on another country joining. That is a fact"

But Leave campaigners have warned an agreement earlier this year between the EU and Turkey on tackling the migrant flow across the Mediterranean has injected new impetus into its membership bid and it has sought to make the issue a major plank of its argument.

'Dishonesty'

Mr Cameron's insistence the UK could block Turkey from joining the EU followed junior Armed Forces Minister Ms Mordaunt telling the Andrew Marr programme that it was a question of when not if this happened.
She seemed to suggest the UK's existing power of veto over the accession of new EU member states would not prevent this from happening.
"It's very likely that they will join, in part because of the migrant crisis. It's escalating and speeding up Turkey in particular, but other accession countries coming in," she told Marr.

 

Turkey first signalled an interest in joining the EU in 1987

When questioned by Marr about the UK's veto on accession countries, she replied "Britain doesn't [have a veto]. I do not think that the EU is going to keep Turkey out. I think it is going to join."

Ms Mordaunt complained that it was dishonest "to have a policy of expansion and at same time deny member states what they need to mitigate the security risk that comes with it".

"If you are going to pursue an expansion policy, you have to allow us the tools to protect our own interests, to protect our national security. That we do not have," she said.

She added: "This referendum is going to be our last chance to have a say on that. We're not going to be consulted or asked to vote on whether we think those countries or others should join."

'Question of judgement'

The Leave campaign has warned if Turkey and six other countries - Serbia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia - who are aspiring EU members - were allowed to join, free movement rules within the EU could see many of their citizens seek work in the UK and could lead to a five million increase in the UK's population by 2030.

A million Turks could potentially come to the UK within eight years of joining, they have claimed, a scale of migration that would run the risk of enabling murderers, terrorists and kidnappers to enter the country.

Successive British government have been, in principle, in support of Turkey joining the EU if it meets the criteria, a position endorsed by Mr Cameron several times since he became prime minister. But the mood music has changed in recent months.

Mr Cameron said that at the current rate of progress it would be the "year 3000" before Turkey joined. "It would be decades, literally decades, before this had a prospect of happening and even at that stage we'd still be able to say no," he told ITV's Peston on Sunday.

"The is a very misleading claim about Turkey. Britain and every other country in the EU has a veto on another country joining. That is a fact.

"And the fact that the Leave campaign are getting things as straightforward as this wrong, I think should call into question their whole judgement into making the bigger argument about leaving the EU.

"They're basically saying vote to get out of Europe because of this issue of Turkey that we can't stop joining the EU. That is not true."

The European Commission has said no new countries will be allowed to join until 2019 and, in reality, the process of enlargement will take much longer as countries try to meet the criteria for joining.

But Leave campaigners argue that there was no talk of a veto when 12 countries joined the EU between 2004 and 2007, which resulted in a huge increase in migration into the UK.

And UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Mr Cameron had been a strong supporter of Turkish membership in the past, tweeting: "Veto? Mr Cameron has said he wants to pave the road from Ankara to Brussels."