Zax, Lies and EU Red Tape
Jeremy Corbyn needs to drop his objection to appearing alongside Cameron, or be left in the sand like Dr Seuss' Zax
One tiny quotation filtered its way through the invisibility cloak surrounding Jeremy Corbyn’s contribution to the EU referendum debate earlier this week. But it was a genuine ray of sunshine: ‘What part of the EU’s famous red tape is the leave camp thinking of cutting?’
The Labour Party now seems to be running with this, and it was used effectively in Thursday’s televised debate. It is important and needs to be centre stage slugging it out with migration and the economy.
The ‘stifling bureaucracy’ of Brussels red tape has been used in the campaign - and for years before in the tabloid press - as a bogey man representing all that’s wrong in Brussels. The American equivalent is the ‘threat to freedom’ which is used against anything from gun control to affordable health care. Few quite understand what these phrases mean but they harness general discontent and sound like common sense. It is long overdue that Leave’s ‘cutting red tape from Brussels’ is unpicked and revealed for what it actually means.
It is difficult to generalise about the Leave camps underlying agenda because they represent such a rag bag of different interests. For the older generation Conservatives, it seems to be about nostalgic, patriotic ideas of sovereignty and Britain’s exalted past. Lord Lawson’s hope that the Irish might re-join a renewed United Kingdom outside the EU, typifies this view and shows just how far out of touch he is. But for a younger and right-wing faction of the Conservative party, it’s becoming clear that the real agenda is deregulation. The wish that Britain could unshackle itself from Brussels and free business from rules protecting workers’ rights and providing health and safety standards – not to mention those enforcing burdensome environmental rules.
But hang on a minute, we have surely learnt since the banking crash (without even having to look back at the misery of workers conditions in the past) that capitalism needs regulation to even begin to make it work for the majority. And should we still be in any doubt, we have just had the shocking scandals of British Home Store and Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct to focus our minds.
The idea of making law at EU level is not to irritate people with useless red tape. It is to harmonise regulation to ensure that everyone in the single market is playing on the same playing field of decent standards. It is fair and prevents the competitive cutting of workers’ rights and dignity. Do they always get it right? Certainly not, and the UK should continue to work against daft regulation. But what gets agreed is generally not bad considering the variety of member states’ special interests involved, and that governments from both left and right have to be balanced. Decent standards are set – some countries like the Nordics and France can add to them - but no-one can significantly undercut them.
But undercut them is exactly what the likes of Johnson, Gove and Hannan would like to do. And this is not a hunch. The impressive Nicola Sturgeon unearthed a gift from Johnson’s writings during Thursday’s ITV referendum debate: ‘The weight of employment regulation is backbreaking. We should get rid of the collective redundancies directive, the workers’ directive, the working time directive and 1,000 more.’ She could have added that Prof Patrick Minford, one of the ‘Economists for Brexit’ group, said of the Group’s recent report, that the Treasury’s analysis made no recognition of the removal of ‘all EU regulation’ in their pessimistic calculations of the economic risks of Brexit.
Leavers say that the real growth is in countries outside the EU like India, Nigeria, Brazil and China – and that’s where our trade should be aimed, not at the ‘stagnating EU’. These countries are of course growing fastest precisely because they are developing from a low base compared to the EU (which is now looking for more sustainable ways to develop). Of course we should and do trade with these countries. But If these are to be our new main targets within a deregulated British economy outside the EU, British workers (and they will be British because the EU migrants stream will be drying up) better fasten their seat belts for a rough race to the bottom, with the competitive cutting of standards to meet those of our new competitors.
That is the agenda – that’s what cutting Brussels red tape means.
And it is not just social regulation. The environment is one of the many issues which has fallen off the agenda, as David Cameron chooses to focus solely on the economy. Most people recognise that our clean beaches, rivers and coastal waters, are thanks to EU legislation. And then there’s biodiversity and climate change standards. Doing these things is difficult, expensive and often unpopular with business – but when standards are common across our key trading block, it makes it easier because no one is being disadvantaged – or rather everyone is being disadvantaged a bit for the common good. Or do we again want to mimic our ‘new trading partners’ in the developing world in terms of environmental standards? Air pollution like China or India anyone?
Despite the potential attraction of all this to unscrupulous business, most of our biggest corporations support Remain. Leave often tell us that this is because they are hand in glove with the EU. Not true. The European Union is the most effective body to apply these minimum standards precisely because it is much harder for business to influence unduly, than simpler national authorities. If you don’t trust my word for it, then take Robert Murdoch’s. Anthony Hilton, writing in the Evening Standard in February, quoted Murdoch who was asked why he hated the EU: ‘That’s easy. When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice’.
If we Brexit, EU law would be replaced by national rules that we could all complain about. But who would be writing those rules? Johnson and Gove perhaps… with the help of Rupert Murdoch and those businesses that want widespread deregulation. So much for ‘taking back control’…
As the polls shift in favour of Brexit, traditional Labour voters will be key for Remain to scrape through. Jeremy Corbyn does not have the luxury of keeping his rays of sunshine to himself. This is bigger than his animosity towards the Conservatives. Whether or not the press is being fair in its coverage of his interventions, there is one way he could ensure greater visibility. He must move on from the tribal politics of the 1970s and share a platform with decent politicians from all parties – including the Conservatives - and argue the case so the British people can hear him. If he does not, Johnson, Gove and Murdoch will write the next chapters and the rest of the world will move on without him...and he will be left like Dr Seuss’ stubborn Zax.
