A SENIOR European Union official will step up his criticism of the UK's stance on immigration, accusing politicians of "pandering" to xenophobia.

Employment Commiss-ioner Laszlo Andor's prev-ious criticism of David Cameron's "nasty" looking restrictions on benefits for foreigners led the angry Prime Minister to lodge a formal complaint.

But the Hungarian will use a visit to Britain to warn Mr Cameron he can't "cherry pick" EU freedoms or base policy on "anecdotes".

Mr Cameron, who wants further curbs, says the Commission lacks "Conser-vative common sense".

At the University of Bristol, Mr Andor will say politicians are avoiding "inconvenient truth" that most migrants are an "asset" to economies such as the UK's with an ageing population.