The Commons continues today to debate the Bill – and today I expect the debate to be a true Europhobiafest, since the theme is human rights, a subject which, even when not linked to the EU, causes much grinding of teeth and hypertension not only, but particularly, in the Conservative clubs of England. Most of the amendments are pretty predictable: they either come from usual backbench suspects (Heathcoat-Amory, Cash, Shepherd) or from the Tory front bench.
But there is one more interesting one, from a group of independent-minded Labour Eurosceptics and others with a special interest in the EU (John Cruddas, Frank Dobson, Kate Hoey and Frank Field as well as Michael Connarty, who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee that was doubtful about the government’s so-called (though to be fair, not by the government) opt-out from the Charter. The aim seems to be to ensure that no provision of the Charter – not simply the provisions on “solidarity”, which mention the right to strike and which wound the CBI up quite disproportionately, leading to all this palaver – creates new justiciable rights in the UK.
Here are links to the Bill and to the Treaty itself including that Protocol.
Ah, yes! The Treaty of Lisbon with Tony Blair’s famous “red lines.” Personally, I find it very hard to see why a worker in Birmingham ought to be worse off than a worker in Belgrade, but they will be under this deal.
Despite the manifest benefits which membership of the EEC/EC/EU has both brought and offers to future generations, there remains an enormous “Europhobia” in both British politicians and in most of the British press.
Even the European Convention on Human Rights is under attack in some quarters and the Labour government has actually “derogated” from some elements of it not than long ago.
Unless and until there is a completely new mindset at Westminster, this phobia will continue with Ministers picking the bits they like and denying to the population the bits the Ministers don’t like. Europe a la carte!