Unlike the main candidates for the Labour leadership, I am not committing myself to support the UK remaining in the EU at next year’s referendum. In principle, I support our membership. It is a good thing for business and it is, generally, a good thing for people. The EU has also done much to keep the peace since World War Two. But I am not going to vote yes to anything.
My doubts about continued membership started to emerge at the treatment of Greece by Europe’s dominating nation, Germany. And the general way in which the EU has effectively bullied the Greeks into further painful cuts to their living standards in return for yet another financial bail out which is doomed to failure. This to me looks like a European Union in name only. The Greeks, who should never have been allowed to join the Euro, have an economy that is in bits. As part of the Troika, the EU has behaved shamefully, under the brutal iron fist of Angela Merkel.
But my doubts have increased today by a story in one of the Tory party’s newspaper’s of choice, the Daily Telegraph (other Tory part newspapers of choice are available, actually: quite a few of them). The Telegraph reports that David Cameron wants the UK to have an opt-out on workers’ rights. He wants an exemption on the working time directive and he wants agency workers to be exempt from rights enjoyed by those fortunate enough to be employed by “normal” companies. No rights to holidays and no protections such as breaks for shift workers. With most trade unions all but castrated by the state, the worker’s lot would not be a happy one if Cameron gets his way.
Personally, if Cameron secures his opt out from the Social Chapter and it forms part of a Tory campaign for a yes vote, it is not an EU to which I would wish to belong.
Although many countries are not in favour of the UK being able to opt out, crucially Germany is, which tells you everything about the way Europe is going. These days, what Germany, what Merkel says, goes and I have no doubt at all that Centre Right Merkel will go the extra mile to oblige further to the Right Cameron if that’s what it takes to keep the UK in the EU.
Of course, I see the dangers of leaving the EU and of course Cameron would further degrade the rights of workers if the UK went it alone. But if the EU continues to plough its current furrow, it is becoming less an organisation that stands for the type of things in which I believe.
