Editorial: More unseemly rabble-rousing on Romania

Barely a day goes by without some rabble-rouser opining about the flood of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants to be unleashed when EU freedom of movement rules kick in next year. Today, it was the Prime Minister adding his two-penn’orth to the unedifying – if not outright shameful – debate, reassuring MPs of his hopes of limiting access to everything from the NHS to justice.

Thankfully, there is not that much he can do. After all, members of the EU must be treated equally. Meanwhile, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the number of migrants who come to Britain to, say, live on benefits, is vanishingly small. Not only that, as The Independent’s three-part series on Romania, published this week, made abundantly clear, there is little to suggest that many are champing at the bit to move west. Given the calibre of our public debate, why would they?