REGULAR readers of this column will know that I have never been an enthusiast for the European Union.

My first decisive acts in politics were to campaign and to vote ‘No’ to staying in the Common Market referendum of 1975. My political enthusiasm is for free markets and free trade, with all the prosperity and freedoms that they bring.

My suspicion of the European project was based on my fear that, notwithstanding its promotion of free trade within the European club, it was a barrier to free trade with the rest of the world. It would therefore, act as a brake on our potential prosperity as Europe’s share of world trade declined relative to growing markets elsewhere.

One of the few things I did like about the European project was the prospect of free movement.

Well over a million of our people have gone to work and live in Europe. They follow in a long and distinguished tradition of our forebears who journeyed overseas to make their fortunes, and to build our empire. We could hardly complain if other nationals came to make their fortunes here, or if citizens of the Empire decided to travel to, and stay at its centre. London has become the exciting, thriving, cosmopolitan capital of the modern World –and incidentally, its sixth largest French city.

This is something that I enjoy, and that I celebrate.

There is a limit however, to the numbers that a small and increasingly crowded island can continue to accommodate.

Immigration has been a controversial political issue as long as I can remember. I fought elections in 2001 and 2005 where my party’s campaign was dominated by it, almost to the exclusion of all other issues (but with little electoral success). After the unprecedented acceleration in immigration that took place in the decade to 2010 Mr Cameron made a pledge to cut the net migration number to the tens of thousands. The figures now show that this target will not be delivered in the lifetime of this parliament – and I have had plenty of emails seeking to rub my nose in it.

I am inclined to say: “If you had given us a parliamentary majority, we could have made a better fist of it. Instead we have had to endure the frustration of a coalition with a party that is less enthusiastic about immigration control.”

As it happens we did make a pretty good effort. Regular readers of this column will recall how I crowed over the early successes of our new immigration policies as they delivered the sharpest reductions since the statistics began. Our cap and points system based on the Australian model, our assault on bogus student applications, our income thresholds and language tests, all delivered remarkable results.

There are a whole set of policies which took much longer to drag through the treacle of coalition government, and are only now being implemented, such as making it near impossible to get a driving licence, open a bank account, or rent a flat, if you are an illegal immigrant. Unfortunately however, all these policies apply only to non EU migrants, and in the last year or so the surge in migrants from the EU has more than matched our reduction in non EU migration, to the extent that there is now no prospect of achieving Mr Cameron’s ambition in the remaining lifetime of this parliament. This is a problem of success: ours is now the fastest growing developed economy, which makes it very attractive to European job seekers.

It is for this reason that Mr Cameron set out his stall for the next parliament by seeking a mandate for tough negotiations with the EU that will allow us to change the current rules which require us to offer the same benefits regime to EU migrants that we do to our own people. Denying these benefits will reduce the advantages of seeking work in Britain. Whilst this may reduce the flow of migrants, critics complain that it isn’t enough because it still doesn’t give us the power to stop them altogether. To do that would require us to leave the EU, and that will be available in a referendum in 2017.

Were we to leave, then we would be able to control EU migration but Britons would lose their rights to live and work in Europe too. We would also lose our automatic access to European markets where a substantial proportion of our trade goes. It would be open to us to negotiate more favourable terms and keep access to the single market. Like them however, we would have to abide by its rules.

The worst of all worlds would be to end up with another coalition after the election in May, and be unable to resolve any of these issues for another parliament. So, it really does make a difference who governs Britain.