From within the European Union we can influence events, not simply surrender to them, writes Lisa Nandy

Planes disappearing from the skies over Europe, boats arriving on the beaches of Lesbos, a global financial crash and the unmistakable trend of one record-breaking global temperature rise after another. These recent events underline how our security and prosperity are now irrevocably linked to what is happening in distant parts of the world.

This interdependence, and our exposure to these cross-border challenges, demands that we work together in the pursuit of practical, shared solutions. Increasingly, our ability to control the major forces that affect our lives in the United Kingdom depends on our ability to persuade and influence others.

It is easy to be cynical about our ability to shape world events. There are too many people across the country employed in insecure, low-paid work, anxious about the future and worried about the changing social fabric of our country, who feel far too powerless to effect change in their own lives. But those who point to the difficulties inherent in putting the world on a more hopeful path ignore the fact that our history is littered with examples of where we have succeeded.

Whether it is our response to the financial crash, our determination to build one of the best healthcare systems in the world or our intervention in Sierra Leone, we are at our best when we shape events instead of simply surrendering to them. The answer to the major challenges we face lies in more cooperation not less.

Just last December, days after the horror of the Paris attacks, world leaders gathered in the same city to sign the Paris Agreement, putting individual interests aside in order to act in our common interest to limit global temperature rises and set us on a path to climate safety. They agreed on a collective goal of building a carbon-neutral global economy within a generation, with all countries agreeing to raise their ambition on clean energy every five years until the job is done. While the binding commitments made are not yet sufficient to keep temperature rises well below the 2° limit, the accord nevertheless takes us much, much closer to climate safety.

The road to Paris was not built overnight. Progress was achieved by working closely, over decades, within the European Union, to create a model for newly industrialising countries to follow that is based on using cleaner and more efficient technologies. Europe demonstrated that green growth is not just a theory. Working with our friends in the EU, we also established a global fund to assist those in poor countries that are most vulnerable to worsening extreme weather events and to help them develop cleaner ways to grow their economies. By raising our ambition, we helped raise everybody else’s too.

The landmark Paris Agreement is just the latest example of how European teamwork, underpinned by our common values, has brought progress on environmental issues. With air, water and wildlife which cross national boundaries, coordinating policies and action plans with our neighbours through the EU has enabled us to improve the quality of the air we breathe and the cleanliness of our coastline.

From Nigel Lawson, who calls climate change ‘mumbo jumbo’, to Nigel Farage who thinks the world is experiencing ‘global cooling’, those politicians who advocate Brexit are also the same ones who have consistently tried to repeal environmental protections and other forms of what they like to call ‘red tape’.

Yet it is these higher European manufacturing standards for cars, lights and household appliances that have brought down costs for families, and stimulated innovation. Witness too the huge fall in the cost of renewable energy technologies like solar panels, and the creation of tens of thousands of jobs in these new energy industries, which have followed Europe’s shared determination to switch to greener power sources.

Trading in energy with our European neighbours has also helped to reduce the number of expensive power stations we need to build. Clubbing together with our friends has saved people money and made us more resilient to those like Vladimir Putin who have sought to use the control of energy supplies to weaken us. While we may not currently import a great deal of gas from Russia, if supplies into Europe are interrupted, that has a knock-on effect for our billpayers because it means higher prices in Britain. That means it is in our interests to work together with the rest of Europe to respond to Putin’s threats and to both reduce the need for fuel imports and to seek alternative gas suppliers.

Energy and climate change is not the only area where the hard job of negotiation, compromise and shared determination to raise standards has had real benefits for the UK and the world. We have worked together to create peace within Europe and to deal with the challenges that war poses to us from outside. With the situation in Syria still desperate, we are currently witnessing the biggest movement of people in Europe since the second world war. And with Greece overwhelmed, it has become apparent no one country can deal with it alone. Cooperation across the EU is already saving lives and enabling us to respond more effectively to the humanitarian crisis. It is important we establish formal mechanisms to deal with the huge influx of refugees in an orderly way since security experts are warning that, as global temperatures rise, the risks of further conflicts will be amplified and the numbers of people who are displaced could continue to rise.

By making human rights standards a condition of membership the EU has also helped to introduce democracy, protect freedom of speech and prevent human rights abuses in countries including Greece and Spain. It has given us decades of peace and aided the reconciliation of the Balkans. It was this legacy that persuaded the judges to award the EU the Nobel peace prize in 2012.

As the Google tax scandal proved, the ability of governments to work together to stop the race to the bottom could not matter more. Rights at work, including paternity and maternity leave and health and safety laws that keep people alive, are all things we have achieved for the UK and workers in other countries because of our membership of the EU. It was an original principle behind the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community after the second world war to level up the treatment of workers in order to make more war, in the words of the then French foreign minister Robert Schuman, ‘not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible’. There are leaders in Europe, David Cameron among them, who consistently argue for weaker standards, so that big employers can play governments off against one another, threatening to go elsewhere if they are forced to pay their taxes or treat their workforce properly. But those leaders have not won.

Those who point to the EU’s complexity, the need for reform, particularly to make it more democratic, are right. We must always strive to build a better Europe, but at its best the EU stands for solidarity among working people across Europe. When corporations like Walmart are roughly equivalent in value to the Norwegian economy, their political might is not matched by one government working alone. Whether it is the threat posed by Isil/Daesh, climate change or irresponsible companies trying to avoid paying their fair share in tax, the EU has helped to provide the answer.

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Lisa Nandy MP is shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change

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