Now is not the time to pull up the drawbridge on the European Union
The list of conditions presented to the Greek government on Sunday night as an ultimatum for releasing funds have been described as ‘brutal’ and born out of ‘pure vindictiveness’. This was an offer that, to the thousands of Greeks who voted ‘Oxi’ to yet more austerity in the referendum of 5 July, laughs in the face of their plight.
The hubris with which these demands were made has shocked many on the left and led them to question whether the European project really is place of progressive politics or a club we want to be in.
This is just the latest round in a long struggle between the Greek people and their creditors – the unaccountable ‘Troika’. The policies, put in place in exchange for billions of euros worth of funds to finance Greece’s crippling debts, have had terrible consequences that will affect generations to come. Greek GDP has fallen by some 25 per cent, unemployment has hit record levels (including over 50 per cent youth unemployment) and studies have proven that suicide rates increase for every 1 per cent decrease in Greek government spending.
Make no mistake about it: this is worse than a Greek tragedy.
However, now is not the time to pull up the drawbridge and withdraw from the European Union. This week’s decisions have been made by elected politicians, not institutions. We should be holding them accountable, not dismantling the building they took the decisions in.
Owen Jones penned a piece in this week’s Guardian in which he describes “building a new Britain, one of workers’ rights, a genuine living wage, public ownership, industrial activism and tax justice”. I support all of these things and believe they are possible; but sadly I disagree that making the case to leave the EU makes all this happening more likely.
The first reason not to leave is the most important in my eyes. Without the safeguard of European legislation, the Tories would have a bonfire of our social and employment rights.
With leaks this week suggesting that David Cameron will seek to withdraw permanently from the Working Time and Temporary Workers Directives, we have a clear idea of his vision for the UK – whether we are in the EU or without. Under this government’s direction, we would no longer have four weeks’ guaranteed paid holiday per year, no regulation requiring employment agencies to provide the same pay and conditions to temporary and permanent workers and no guaranteed equal treatment of men and women in the workplace. The list goes on.
European legislation is far from perfect, and there remains much to be done in terms of securing greater protections for workers. However it is by working together and establishing common principles that we have the greatest chance of improving the lives of our most vulnerable citizens. Labour has campaigned hard to close loopholes in European rules which allow employment agencies to routinely pay agency workers far less than permanent staff doing the same job in order to drive down costs.
It is a sad fact that Europe is suffering from a technocratic and bureaucratic right-wing swamp: more than half of the 28 EU governments are run or led by Conservative and right-leaning Liberal governments. But it is only in being present and speaking up for socialist principles that we can achieve things like the Financial Transaction Tax, regulate casino capitalism and champion social justice. Europe needs some imaginative left thinking and vision to lift it out of its current torpor.
Without the hard work of the Socialist and Democrat Group, of which Labour is a member, the European Parliament’s resolution on the infamous Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership passed last week would contain few or no protections for public services, workers’ rights or the environment. It is down to the very presence of the left in the European Union that the negotiators of a trade deal whose impact will be felt by all will be forced to listen to the people.
As many have pointed out, the money that was intended to ‘save’ the Greek economy actually went to those British, French and German banks that had recklessly lent money to Greece in the first place, raising the country’s private debt to unsustainable levels. The effect of the creditors’ bailout has been to transfer this private debt to Greece’s public institutions and population, in a sequence of events not dissimilar, albeit with much more devastating consequences, to what happened in the UK following the 2008 crash.
Preventing such a situation from happening again requires regulating banks on an international scale: something that can only be achieved through vehicles of international cooperation such as the European Union. Leaving the table would mean we cannot be part of that discussion.
It would put the UK on an unequal footing against our European neighbours, leading us nowhere but down the path to social dumping and the undercutting of wages. Moreover, if we went for UKIP’s touted ‘Norway solution’, we would be subjected to the same rules as we are now (including on the free movement of labour) but have absolutely no say on how these rules are formed.
Owen Jones is right to call the events of the past few weeks ‘ugly’. He is right to call for a leftist campaign, reinvigorated by revulsion over and rejection of the creditors’ implacable demands and bullish tactics. But this must not be a campaign to retreat from Europe and create a socialist paradise in the UK: it’s about organising with our European neighbours and building a collective voice, all the louder because we are greater in number.
Only by working together will we make ourselves heard.
When we are angry with Westminster we do not argue that we should leave: we argue that we should get more people like us into the Commons to change the direction of political decisions. This is how we change the EU too.
Jude Kirton-Darling is Labour MEP for the North East of England. Follow her on Twitter
23 Responses to “Only by staying in the EU will we make our voices heard”
Neiall Mullery
How to reform _parliament_ whilst they’re still blaming the EU for not letting them ‘do what’s needed’
how both the voting system & social media is an embarrassment to major political parties in light of recent election
how to blame our government, the house of Lord’s, and their multiple vested interests stopping us achieving a true democracy, and a safe environment for the people
how to NOT reform housing, prisons, education,right to die, the monarchy, get elected and hide behind a conglomerate of vast unaudited wealth & power, helping arm conflicts and calling themselves peaceful whilst bludgeoning human wealth _by decree_ for the good of who exactly?
We have other places to put environmental protections in place, like the G20
I must have missed the memo where war & environmental criminals are being hounded into the justice system by “the powerful EU nations”
They’re playing tag
we ain’t even in the game
let’s get out and either revolutionise OUR governance, or just be swindled more slowly
Lomond Handley
Fuhrer Angela Merkel states that ‘…where there’s a will. there’s a way…’.
Her will. Her Way !
Pigs will fly, before any significant changes which benefit the British People are made to the EU and anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly misguided.
We all make mistakes and it will prove to be a monumental mistake if Britain remains in the EU.
We need to exit the EU and escape from the jackboots of Merkel and her gang of bullies.
Bill Lawrence
David Tough is so correct – What is needed is to give the EP (people like Jude K-D, et al) powers over the Euro Commission. Deirdrie Shaw has it true too – Sitting on the sidelines as so many British politicians, institutions, etc do is the way to ruin for this country. I am from a UK trade union, active with its pan-Euro federation on an EC social dialogue committee alongside a dozen trade unionists debating employment, H&S and social conditions with employers organisations. I’m the only Brit at the table – the unions may not see the value and our employers just don’t turn up, something which even baffles their own side.
stevep
I don`t read the Guardian, or many other newspapers. I like to get my “news” from a variety of sources and make my own mind up.
It was said before the election that Putin was hoping for a Conservative victory in the UK as an in/out referendum would weaken the EU.
The Russian Bear`s going to awake from it`s slumbers anyway, possibly with China in tow. What political system will emerge afterwards and what effect it will have on the world is anyone`s guess.
Perhaps emboldened western leaders shouldn’t poke Bears while they`re sleeping.
Mike Stallard
But did you see Baroness Ashton in Kiev? And read the way that the EU is determined to get Ukraine into the system?
These unelected people with a foreign minister from Italy – Federika Mogherini – are not capable of doing foreign policy at all. If only they were! Look at the mess they are making over immigration from Libya. All very funny until you happen, as I am, to be teaching the immigrant “children” before they are sent back to an empty room in a war zone with just a mattress on the floor to sleep on – worse than an English jail actually.