James O'Brien Explains Why Brexit Won't Give Us Control Of Our Borders

12 June 2017, 12:23 | Updated: 12 June 2017, 14:51

Many voted for Brexit to "take back control" of UK borders, says James O'Brien. In this clip he explains why that won't happen.

James highlighted one staggering statistic which shows exactly why Britain will never have control of its borders. 

On his weekday LBC show he said: "'It's all going to be great James, because we're going to be able to control our borders'.

"If you could control our borders, we wouldn't now be reeling from the revelation this morning, that there has been a 96 per cent drop in the number of European Union nurses registering with the NHS. 

"Ninety-six per cent down. There are was you could do the maths that would make it sound even bigger than that actually."

James went on: "Now if you're controlling your borders, you can't let nurses leave, right? There's no such thing. 

"You might be able to exercise control over the people coming in, which we could have done, under European Union laws, which other European Union countries do do, but all of those people banging on about fish and passports deliberately deceived you." 

Figures collated by the Nursing & Midwifery Council show the number of new nurse applicants from the EU fell from 1,304 in July last year to just 46 in April this year.

EU nurses' applications to work in UK down 96% since Brexit vote

James added: "The politicians in power didn't tell you the truth, because the truth would involve saying: actually, immigration brings more money into the country, than it sees goes out, and if we brought in all the measures needed to bring in the powers of the European Union allows us to exert, it would end up costing more than it would save. 

"It would actually be economically damaging to do these things. So all these people now, talking now about "controlling our borders" and "controlled immigration", ask them, next time you see them, how they're going to stop nurses leaving." 

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