Tagged with European Union

What Chuka Umunna’s amendment showed us

“We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.” There you go, clear as day. Labour’s position from the 2017 manifesto on the Brexit negotiations. That nicely prefaces a look at Chuka Umunna’s rebel amendment on retaining single market membership that was put to the Commons yesterday.

I would like to make a basic distinction between the people who rebelled between the principled and the self-serving. Continue reading →

The Tories must not be allowed to dismantle the Human Rights Act

The Tories, helped by their lickspittle Tory tabloids, are building up a huge wave of hysteria not only against Romanian and Bulgarian immigramts, but also against the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act which it brought into UK law. They quote the large number of human rights cases taken to Strasbourg -2,082 in this last year – but they don’t admit how many were actually upheld by the ECHR. The answer is 12, or 0.5%.

They also don’t say why so many cases are taken to the ECHR in the first place. The answer is that human rights are not upheld in this country as well as they could, and should, be. Nor do they mention the kind of cases that end up in the ECHR – protecting the rights of care workers, for example, or the right to wear a crucifix at work, or the lifting of the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces. It is cases like this which, astonishingly, have led Home Secretary May to announce publicly that she is actually contemplating the renunciation of the European convention. Continue reading →

The current Tory hysterics over Europe have tarnished the real role of referenda

There are two kinds of referenda – those that are for the benefit of the political class and those that are for the benefit of the public. They are quite different. When referenda are mooted, it is invariably the former kind. Political leaders only consent to holding a referendum when they are almost certain to win it, and even then only to try to resolve a political problem largely confined to themselves.

Europe is the classic example of this. Wilson held a referendum on the EU in 1975 in order to settle the argument then raging in the Labour Party about leaving the Common Market (as it then was) and he won it, but 8 years later Labour then went to the country in the 1983 election pledged to exit once again. Plus ca change.

Now the Tory party is going through one of its hissy fits over the EU and Cameron is forced to offer a referendum as the only way to calm down the hysterics. It is doubtful if it will ever be held, but even if it is and is lost (as is most likely), one can sure that the Tory Right after the minimum decent interval will be back again with the same demand. Politically driven referenda solve nothing, but electorate-driven referenda could have real value. Continue reading →

EU Health Regulations – improving patients’ rights or more NHS privatisation in disguise?

It is appalling that the recent NHS privatisation regulations have now been passed, despite a broad-based and vigorous campaign against them.

The Regulations, made under Section 75 of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, essentially require all NHS services to be put out to competition unless there is only one provider capable of delivering them.

As Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, has pointed out, with these changes the legal framework for a publicly provided, publicly managed, publicly planned and democratically accountable health service has been removed. Continue reading →

The Tories’ cynical opportunism on the EU

The Tories are ploughing ahead with their plans for a referendum on EU membership. Having been strong-armed by his right wing backbenchers and the rise of UKIP, Cameron is proposing he renegotiates what he calls a “better deal” for Britain in Europe and then puts it to a referendum.

Up to now the debate on the referendum has largely been shaped around the timing of this referendum, an argument which totally misses the point of what is going on. Cameron is using this referendum as a cynical, opportunistic ploy to attack workers rights and consolidate the power and influence of The City. Continue reading →