BLACKBURN MP Jack Straw has admitted that he and the Labour Government got their estimates of Eastern European immigration catastrophically wrong when he was Foreign Secretary.

He made the confession on a BBC documentary ‘The Truth About Immigration’ screened last week. As border controls were lifted for Romanians and Bulgarians, Mr Straw reflected on the decision to allow workers in when Poland and seven other eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004. He said: “The predictions were completely catastrophic. I mean they were wrong by a factor of 10.

“On immigration, it was bluntly a nightmare and it got more and more difficult.”