‘What did the EU ever do for workers?’ The answer is, of course, a lot more than has been done by our domestic governments for many decades.
The European Union, the European parliament and its institutions, have all been good to British workers giving them more rights, greater protection as well as better conditions and a lot more time off.
As a trade unionist and a Labour politician, I am delighted that this is the case, but as a democrat I have serious reservations and concerns. I want British workers to have these better rights and conditions, but I want them to be agreed and introduced by our parliament. I do not want them imposed by a distant, unaccountable, indirectly elected EU.
When the European Economic Community was first formed, and when the United Kingdom first joined, it was to give us a trading advantage in a larger European economic bloc. It is what people voted for in the 1975 referendum. But the political union, in the form of the European parliament, came later and has been developing largely unchecked.
The powers which went with this political union, the ability of members of the European parliament (elected on the least democratic ‘closed list’ system) to override the will and laws of our domestic parliament means that even though we might agree with better rights for workers, we cannot be certain that the majority of Britain agrees.
Imagine if it were different. Imagine if the European parliament, instead of being largely socially liberal were in fact anti-worker and pro-business to the point where all protections and ‘red tape’ were removed. Imagine health and safety legislation were abolished, pregnant women having their maternity leave equalised with the United States down to 12 weeks, temporary and agency workers once again having few or no rights in the labour market.
The EU’s directives would suddenly seem a lot less appealing.
This is important because it is part of a social and political contract between people and their elected representatives. Political parties present their national manifestos to the electorate in which they explain the use to which taxpayer money will be put: big state/small state, tax rise/tax cuts, private/public provision of services. Individuals vote for the party that they feel best represents them and, if they do not like what they do, they vote them out again five years later.
But if a large part of their taxes are being sent to the EU where they have no say in how the money is spent or which member state it will be spent in, then there will be no support and only resentment and alienation.
It is why the free movement of labour causes such anger, why giving benefits to those from other European countries who have moved here but have until now not contributed is so divisive. It is because people have never been consulted, have never had the chance to vote on it, and told that this is what is best for them.
A project that began with a vision of a political union for a peaceful Europe is in danger of causing the very opposite. The last European elections saw a sharp rise in the support for far-right parties across the continent and civil unrest in the countries that have become most reliant on the European Central Bank.
If the trend continues and we eventually see far-right parties taking over the European parliament, we will see why it is important that we do not allow Europe to dictate to us.
If that happens, it will not be workers’ rights that we will be welcoming into our domestic laws.
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Natascha Engel MP is chair of the backbench business committee. She tweets @NEngelMP
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Join Natascha and the rest of the panel at Labour party conference next week:
What did the EU ever do for workers?
7.30-8.45pm, Monday 22 September 2014
Lancashire Room, Peter House, Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5AN
Gareth Thomas MP Shadow minister for Europe
Natascha Engel MP Chair, backbench business committee
Jutta Steinruck MEP Committee on employment and social affairs, European parliament
Nita Clarke Director, IPA Involve
Chair: John Park Assistant general secretary, Community
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I do agree with most of the comments been made. But we seem’s to forget why the common market was set up for. The reason was we don’t have any more war’s in Europe. We never had any input in the setting up of the Rome treaty. Because we had your Commonwealth Its was a big mistake that we have made. Then we had Macmillan when around the world saying that we never had so good. So when we wanted to join the market De Gaulle said no, so in hindsight he was right so when we joined the common market we wanted the rules changing. We are seeing the consequence of your lack of vision. That’s why we are seeing the raise of right wing parties in Europe.We complain about foreign workers but we seem to forget that a lot of British people workers EU. The most scarey vision is, we are trying to go back to the cold war which could easily set off the third world war.