Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[polymerpunkah]

The boat is leaking, let's jump out.

[dennis tooth]

Far from being adamant, I have never claimed that the EU is left wing. Nor would I claim that. That'd be as daft as claiming that it is fundamentally, essentially neoliberal.

Quite. The point I was making was my position on it was that I was more pro eu than you.

[skend04]

I'm finding it really strange that people are arguing against EU neo-liberalism but their votes have delivered exactly that for the UK. The Tories will walk the 2020 election and even if a Labour party comes in in 2025 we'll be too far down the Singapore path for it to matter.

[Kloppite]

I'm finding it really strange that people are arguing against EU neo-liberalism but their votes have delivered exactly that for the UK. The Tories will walk the 2020 election and even if a Labour party comes in in 2025 we'll be too far down the Singapore path for it to matter.

Hasn't Singapore got one of the best education systems in the world and is currently leaving the uk in its wake economy wise?

[dennis tooth]

I'm finding it really strange that people are arguing against EU neo-liberalism but their votes have delivered exactly that for the UK. The Tories will walk the 2020 election and even if a Labour party comes in in 2025 we'll be too far down the Singapore path for it to matter.

At least it's our votes that decide that.

[stringvest]

At least it's our votes that decide that.

 

 

I'd prefer the right result to the right process every time.  

 

Especially when that process has been abused by those in power telling the ignorant what to think, so have the result stitched up every time.  I thought you were anti-establishment democracy anyway Den?

[skend04]

Hasn't Singapore got one of the best education systems in the world and is currently leaving the uk in its wake economy wise?

Yep, money laundering is apparently off the scale and we are lagging behind. Also there's not enough people living on fuck all here so we need to catch up there too.

 

At least it's our votes that decide that.

Do they though? We are governed by the minority. Not very democratic that.

[dennis tooth]

I want direct democracy which is closer to what we have than what the eu offers.

[dennis tooth]

Why are they talking ttip's and eu armies and doing away with British culture such as pounds and ounces?

Telling us which way are bananas should be or that the nhs must put it's contracts out to tender?

Simple examples of a small amount of people decing up Europe making decisions on behalf of everyone else.

What they doing in Africa?

[Lee909]

Yeah

Democracy that gives the Queen a few hundred mill to do up her palace,the government what a billion to up their palace. Allowing a loop hole do a duke can mot give up 3.6 billion in inheritance tax. Cuts to the NHS and social care we all wanted that too.

 

Democracy that chose to bomb the middle East

 

Democracy that choose to replave trident

 

 

Go British democracy

[dennis tooth]

The nhs cuts were eu directed.

Funny how it's going on all across Europe too this austerity. If only we were clever enough to join the dots.

 

Every privatisation in my lifetime here has been eu led. Fact

[Lee909]

Yeah Dennis

The Tories are not wanking themselves into a stupor over cutting the NHS as they've done before. I guess the EU told them to cut benefits,pay unelected Lords to sit amd puck their arse. Replace trident,keep the Queen. Shit they probably thought the conquest of the New World was a good thing in the 1500s too

[dennis tooth]

No2EU candidate Brian Denny explains how the EU is promoting zero-hours contracts, casualisation and poverty pay.

 

There has been an explosion in the use of agency workers and zero-hour contracts here and across the European Union. It has been estimated that over a million people in Britain are now on zero-hour contracts which allows employers to use and abuse workers without any obligation to guarantee a minimum number of working hours.

 

But zero-hours contracts and the increasing use of agency workers simply reflects the EU's neoliberal employment model which promotes labour market "flexibility," while allegedly providing minimum protections to soften the blow, so-called "flexicurity" - the made-up word by which this model is sold.

The EU's much-derided Lisbon Agenda with its promise of "flexicurity" was followed by "Europe 2020" - a 10-year strategy proposed by the European Commission to "deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion."

This agenda openly calls for wages to reflect productivity, which means cutting wages even further allegedly to compete with the "core" high-investment economies of France and Germany.

Even pro-EU European TUC general secretary Bernadette Segol openly admits that "cuts in salaries, cuts in public services and weakening collective bargaining rights are all on the agenda."

This has sparked unprecedented levels of unemployment particularly in so-called "peripheral" countries such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal and the Baltic states.

The wholesale suspension of trade union collective bargaining as a condition of EU "bailouts" in Ireland, Portugal and Greece also demonstrates that trade union rights are an obstacle to EU plans for restructuring labour markets.

The European Commission, IMF and the European Central Bank now directly intervene in national wage negotiations in Ireland, Greece and Romania to weaken collective bargaining. For instance previously in Romania 98 per cent of workers were covered by collective agreements today that figure is around 20 per cent.

At the start of the year Labour leader Ed Miliband pledged to change Britain's implementation of the EU Agency Workers Directive, which "allows firms to avoid paying agency workers at the same rates as directly employed staff."

The next day The Times quoted Recruitment and Employment Confederation boss Kevin Green as saying Miliband's arguments were "misleading," adding: "These arrangements are part of the 2010 Agency Workers Regulations that were agreed following consultation between the last Labour government, business and the unions and apply to British and non-British workers."

From this exchange it is clear that the directive does not protect agency workers and that the agencies themselves are very happy with the current arrangements.

So why haven't the much-lauded European Union Agency Work Regulations (AWR) defended vulnerable workers?

The reality is that despite the fact that AWR was purported to protect agency workers, the overwhelming effect of it coming into force has been to actually normalise and institutionalise casualised labour.

Moreover while the regulations are meant to ensure agency workers enjoy the same basic pay and conditions as permanent workers any such rights only kick after 12 weeks on the same temporary assignment.

And as if that is not enough there is a "flat-pack" solution for employers to avoid the AWR altogether, the so-called "Swedish derogation" which is being used aggressively by agencies and users of agency work to keep down pay.

This derogation was inserted by the Swedish EU delegation during the usual Byzantine horse-trading that goes on as directives are drawn up behind closed doors.

Under it, if the agency worker signs a permanent employment contract with an agency then there is no obligation for them to receive basic pay and conditions comparable to a permanent worker.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady has said: "Swedish derogation contracts are just one more example of a new growing type of employment that offers no job security, poor career progression and often low pay."

Agency workers are being forced to waive any alleged right to protection under the AWR. Some agency workers are finding that they are worse off, since their contract stipulates where they can be sent to work with little advance warning.

 

The EU directive even demands that member states end "unjustified" or "disproportionate" restrictions on agency work such as the ban on agency workers in the public sector in France and Spain.

This extension of agency labour at the heart of the directive explains why Norwegian workers organised national protests against its implementation in 2013.

The promises of "social Europe," launched 25 years ago to sell EU treaties to the labour movement, are being replaced by the realities of "anti-social Europe" with attacks on workers' rights across Europe driven by the EU institutions.

These EU rules, directives and European Court of Justice judgments - such as in the Viking and Laval cases - are driving a race to the bottom in terms of jobs, wages and conditions and encouraging social dumping on a huge scale.

Ultimately, destroying the concept of a permanent job with rights and replacing it with precarious employment while exploiting a reserve army of cheap labour is the core structural adjustment strategy of the EU.

That is no future for workers or the labour movement. Vote No2EU - Yes to Workers' Rights.

[dennis tooth]

Yeah Dennis

The Tories are not wanking themselves into a stupor over cutting the NHS as they've done before. I guess the EU told them to cut benefits,pay unelected Lords to sit amd puck their arse. Replace trident,keep the Queen. Shit they probably thought the conquest of the New World was a good thing in the 1500s too

Funny the Tories aren't in charge of Europe yet those cuts to public spending are going on all over the eu.

Can you explain that to me?

[Lee909]

Yeah,right wing government across the vast majority of the Western world

[dennis tooth]

‘The Left in Europe urgently needs to organise to put forward a united and ambitious vision that shows an alternative to the EU’s austerity policies is both necessary and possible’

THE CALL by left-wing parties across Europe for a united and ambitious Left alternative to the EU’s austerity policies to fight the threat of the rise of the Far Right has been backed by Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy.

 

The Sinn Féin MEP, a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, took part in drawing up a joint declaration on the EU’s austerity policies which was endorsed by a range of progressive parties, that included:-

 

· Sinn Féin

 

· Podemos and Izquierda Unida (Spain)

 

· SYRIZA (Greece)

 

· Left Bloc and Portuguese Communist Party (Portugal)

 

· Die Linke (Germany)

 

· Front de Gauche (France)

 

· Red-Green Alliance (Denmark)

 

· AKEL (Cyprus). The declaration was issued at the close of an inter-parliamentary conference in Brussels on the EU’s economic governance framework.

http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/26637

Bit of a coincidence isn't it?

Is it free to join your mental gymnasium?

 

Juncker says age of austerity not over - budget discipline needed

 

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/20632/has-the-eu-won-the-battle-over-austerity-only-to-lose-the-war

[dennis tooth]

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/10358694

[Gnasher]

I'd prefer the right result to the right process every time.

 

Especially when that process has been abused by those in power telling the ignorant what to think, so have the result stitched up every time. I thought you were anti-establishment democracy anyway Den?

Yep me too, like we've had the right results in this country recently?

[Gnasher]

Funny the Tories aren't in charge of Europe yet those cuts to public spending are going on all over the eu.

Can you explain that to me?

They won't but the answer is simple

 

https://youtu.be/X-pxlE0zxp0

[Gnasher]

It dosnt take a rocket scientist why people who have experienced year upon year of austerity and neglect did not cancel their days engagements and rush to the ballot box to put a cross endorsing these cunts,

 

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/13/goldman-sachs-pays-nick-clegg-22500-pro-eu-speech-pepsico

[VladimirIlyich]

'The NHS cuts were EU directed?' FFS Dennis you are definitely off your meds here.

The cuts to the NHS are because a party set up long ago for the rich and wealthy(ergo a minority) has never wanted ordinary people to have free health care as they would rather they either die or pay for it(the former is my view.) They have never needed any help from others to do this and have done it prior to membership of the EU and will continue to do afterwards. They simply view poor people as vermin or customers,probably both.

[stringvest]

Yep me too, like we've had the right results in this country recently?

 

 

no.

[Lee909]

'The NHS cuts were EU directed?' FFS Dennis you are definitely off your meds here.

The cuts to the NHS are because a party set up long ago for the rich and wealthy(ergo a minority) has never wanted ordinary people to have free health care as they would rather they either die or pay for it(the former is my view.) They have never needed any help from others to do this and have done it prior to membership of the EU and will continue to do afterwards. They simply view poor people as vermin or customers,probably both.

https://youtu.be/LVltOSC0JMQ

[dennis tooth]

"The OJEU process

 

When we identify new requirements for our NHS members, we are obliged to follow the formal procurement process under EU legislation. The EU Procurement Directives are designed to promote competition and transparency in the award of contracts for the supply of products and services to public sector organisations throughout Europe. In the UK, the Directives are embedded in the Public Contract Regulations 2006."

http://www.lpp.nhs.uk/for-suppliers/

[dennis tooth]

"Recent months and years have seen industrial action and protest from health workers in Croatia, Kosovo, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia."

"

 

he EU is Dedicated to Privatisation and the Biggest Attack on Workers’ Rights for a Generation

by Brian Denny

Fri 25th Jan 2008

 

A number of recent events have clarified the true nature of the European Union and probably shattered many illusions. At the end of last year, the European Commission adopted a draft health services directive designed to create a “market” in healthcare. This followed numerous judgments on the subject at the European Court of Justice. It constitutes a direct attack on the principles of the National Health Service.

 

The directive was introduced after healthcare was removed from the services directive, which is designed to remove all barriers in service provision and speed up the creation of an internal market within the EU.

 

Britain’s railways suffered a similar fate when they were privatised by the Tories according to EU Directive 91/440. This stipulated the separation of track and operations in order to create a “market”.

 

In early December, the European Court of Justice ruled in the Viking and Vaxholm cases that taking strike action was not, after all, a fundamental right under EU rules. Also in December, the renamed EU constitution was rubber-stamped to great fanfare in Portugal with the new title of the “Lisbon treaty”. EU leaders also adopted the curious word “flexicurity” as a concept.

 

Combined, these events represent the greatest threat to trade unionism, democracy and social progress since the Second World War. “Flexicurity” makes the false promise that, if workers embrace “flexibility”, job “security” will follow. Surely this is a contradiction in terms.

 

The architects of “flexicurity” consist of the European Commission and corporate lobbyists such as the European Round Table of industrialists. The concept is designed fatally undermine collective bargaining. It demands the abolition of “overtly protective terms and conditions” in contracts which supposedly “deter employers from hiring during economic upturns”. In plain language, this would mean an end to workers’ collective rights.

 

According to the EU: “Stringent employment protection tends to reduce the dynamism of the labour market.” So, presumably, without unions there would be a permanent economic boom. Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson was right when he said that the concept of flexicurity “hides behind the language of equality to propose measures to force exploitation and insecurity on to every worker in Europe”

 

As the biggest trade union in Cyprus, PEO, recently declared, flexicurity represents “a very dangerous attempt to smash existing labour laws and gains”, increasing the trend towards “casual uninsured jobs”. PEO’s view is that: “The changes being sought are aimed in reality at easing labour protection rules, the abolition of full and steady employment as well as the marginalisation of collective agreements.”

 

An EU green paper promoting flexicurity said that contractor obligations to monitor employment law among sub-contractors “may serve to restrain sub-contracting by foreign firms and present an obstacle to the free provision of services in the internal market”.

 

It is no coincidence that both the Viking and Vaxholm judgements in the European Court of Justice attack trade union collective bargaining rights in Scandinavian countries, where they are enshrined both in law and in the constitution. This is the social model which is most at odds with the EU where the “smooth operation of the market” overrides any other rights or considerations.

 

In the Viking and Vaxholm cases, Swedish and Finnish unions sought to prevent companies paying foreign labour up to 60 per cent lower wages. According to the European Court ruling, while there is a “fundamental” right to take collective industrial action, such action represents a restriction on the right of freedom of establishment where it makes the exercise of that right “less attractive”.

 

But industrial action is, by its very nature, an obstacle to the activities of a company and free movement. However, the European has now declared in that EU rules on the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour gives private firms protection against collective action by trade unions. In other words, an employer’s right to “freedom of establishment” trumps the right to strike.

 

Richard Arthur of Thompsons, the trade union solicitors, described the European Court’s rulings as “absurd” and “ludicrous” ones which would run roughshod over universally recognised union rights. In fact, Arthur says this is worse than the anti-union laws Britain already has.

 

“Tory anti-union legislation only restricted the right to strike by introducing stringent procedures in order to carry out industrial action. However, the European Court of Justice has now given itself the opportunity to scrutinise the legitimacy and the proportionality of any given dispute and the effect on the employer.”

 

No one should be surprised. Many years ago, in another ruling, the European Court of Justice stated that: “It is well established in the case law of the court that restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of fundamental rights, in particular in the context of a common organisation of the market.” So the human right of withdrawing your labour must not interfere with the “common organisation of the market”.

 

Such rulings are reminiscent of the infamous judgment in 1901 in favour of the Taff Vale Railway against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for having the audacity to go on strike. The “crime” then was known as being “in restraint of trade”. Today, it is called “freedom of establishment”.

 

Under the renamed EU constitution, currently being scrutinised in Parliament, an EU institution – the European Court of Justice – would gain huge new powers over member states. The constitution also gives the EU a permanent neo-liberal orientation, while Brussels will gain the power to privatise – the main reason for the “No” votes on the constitution in referendums in France and the Netherlands. This was also the reason why TUC delegates voted against the constitution 2005 and why the TUC renewed its call for a referendum on in 2007.

 

Under Article III-147 of the old constitution, the EU would be given powers to enforce privatisation in any area of economic activity. “A European framework law shall establish the measures in order to achieve the liberalisation of a specific service”. This provision remains under the reform treaty – which is basically the constitution with another name.

 

That is why flexicurity, EU court judgments and EU rules on “free movement” – all enshrined in the renamed EU constitution – represent the most fundamental attacks on working people for a generation. If there is a European social model it is enshrined in flexicurity, European Court rulings and mass privatisation. It should be rejected along with the renamed constitution.

 

Brian Denny is spokesman for Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution. This article appeared on Compass.