We have been shouting from the Brussels rooftops for some time about the mess David Cameron and Daniel Hannan have created in Brussels. Since David Miliband’s conference speech revealing Cameron’s xenophobic, anti-semitic allies, Labour has at last started fighting on the front foot on Europe.
As journalists start writing their reviews of this decade, I wish Labour had not so often been apologising for Europe for the last 10 years. We have delivered on maternity and paternity rights, temporary and agency workers rights, methods to tackle discrimination, international development policies, protection for minorities, the elderly, the vulnerable, LGBT groups, and enshrined the rights of the child in EU legislation. Even Eurosceptics understand that we need international organisations to sort out climate change and help the developing world, areas where Labour has taken a clear lead.
Labour also led the enlargement of the EU, an achievement recognised by all our EU partners. The growth of the EU to 27 members has helped all of us, it has widened the markets for our exports. Make no mistake, ‘UK PLC’ has done well out of EU enlargement. Short-term immigration from eastern Europe boosts the UK economy, and the more their economies develop, the more our exports grow through the EU’s internal market. We have helped set up a virtuous circle.
So we have a record worth shouting about. However, we have failed to blow our own trumpet. Labour has been too timid in acknowledging the successes we achieved by acting internationally. We have been too timid in emphasising that we can only achieve the fair society we work towards by active EU engagement. Instead, for the last decade, the papers have been filled with ‘Euro-myths’, requiring a full-time rebuttal unit in London’s commission office (the only one deemed necessary in the EU!)
Cameron’s new alliance is not some technical change only of interest to the ‘Brussels village’. The Tories have lost power and influence. To take one example, the EU is currently drafting financial services legislation (a key UK interest if ever there was one) and the Tories have failed to secure a single report in the field for their MEPs or their allies. When Cameron U-turned on his referendum policy, he created a meaningless set of guarantees to British ‘sovereignty’ with a damaging plan to roll back some of the most popular European decisions. He needed the Eurosceptic votes to clinch the Tory leadership in 2005, and has only now realised the consequences. He has marginalised his party in Europe, but he dare not go back on his promise and lose his support base. His political career is clearly more important to him than the British national interest.
After the bad publicity the Tories’ new allies received in the UK, William Hague and others attempted to smear Labour’s allies in the Socialists and Democrats group. Labour has no need to apologise for anything. Hague grossly smeared our Romanian, Polish and Bulgarian Socialist colleagues on the Today programme. Not only are his smears unfounded, but more importantly, the Socialists are united on the progressive policies that matter, as our voting record shows. The proof of the pudding is in the voting records, which are there for all to see. If a member party even allies with unacceptable parties in their member state, we ask those parties to leave our group. Individual MEPs are only free to stay in the group if they pledge to accept our group’s values and condemn the actions of their national party.
At the end of a decade that saw Labour deliver in Europe, it is time the party started to make its case. We need to explain how the right under Cameron would hold this country back. It is not too late for Labour to start to make the case for Europe.