HearFromYourMP

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• Posted by Roger Fearn, 17:31, Tue 3 February 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Mr Redwood,

  Perhaps you will have more success in trying to contact Lord Mandelson than I have had - apparently he does not speak to members of the public who telephone him at his office, according to the individual who answered the phone.

  I have an issue, and indeed a good deal of sympathy, with the various strike activity which is taking place up and down the country at the moment.

  It is all very well for the Prime Minister and his cabinet members (Lord Mandelson included), to deride these actions and to put some kind of nationalistic slant on them. You see my difficulty is with the politicians who have put us in this situation. When I was asked to vote, back in June 1975, about whether I wanted to stay in the EU (or whatever it was called then), nobody said anything about handing over the legal process which has allowed the situation we now have to develope. I can recall Harold Wilson and Ted Heath, telling me then that it was all about cheap French wine and inexpensive foreign holidays. Nothing was said about handing the country over to a foreign, unelected power, where endemic corruption creates financial voids of eyeball bleeding proportions. It is high time these individuals were held to account, not vilifying individuals who are no doubt wondering what on earth they are going to do to pay their bills and put food on the table.

  Am I surprised? No, not really, it feels like Iron Curtain Britain these days.If you can ask his Lordship for an explanation on my behalf, I would be grateful, but somehow I'm doubtful that he would want to risk surrendering his first class seat in the restuarant car of the Europe Gravy Train, by giving a truthful answer.

  Regards,

  Roger Fearn

• Posted by John Redwood, 13:18, Thu 5 February 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  The government is making a mess of the strikes. Some in the government sympathise with the strikers, and want to try to find a way through the problem. Others side with the management, and think they should be required to let a contract to the best value contractor under EU rules, with the contractor bringing in labour from elsewhere in the EU if that is their wish. The uncertain note and tone of the government encourages the strikers, who want to find out how many government Ministers are on their side, and how many support the EU law.

  It was always just a matter of time before the question of who governs, London or Brussels, became an important political issue at the heart of a real dispute. Many users of alternative remedies and herbals medicines felt they had raised this issue when EU rules threatened to remove products they liked from shop shelves, and threatened to close shops and small producers down for not meeting new and dearer regulatory requirements. The government sided with the EU, and the protests died down. Fishermen have long raised this issue over the progressive collapse of their industry under the Common Fishing Policy. Now we have an issue with an even wider implication, testing this question of where is accountable government?

  Some now in the UK government wish to suggest this is the BNP at work. Looking at the crowds peacefully protesting, they are much more likely to be the usual mix of Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem voters, with a fair share of non voters. They are not in the main politically motivated people. They are people out of work and wanting a job, or scared that their jobs too could vanish in this crisis and under these rules.

  Today I wish to discuss the EU implications of this dispute. For years the UK government has told us that it influences EU legislation, and had got on well with our partners. The truth has usually been very different. The UK government has found out what the EU plans to do next, and then has told us it finds that acceptable or a good idea. Where it realises that an EU measure is going to be unpopular it either plays it down, or tells us it is going to press for changes. If it manages a minor change it then heralds this as a success and gives in on the bigger principles at stake. As a result of its retreats we have lost a big chunk of our financial rebate successfully negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, we have imported huge quantities of regulation whilst the government has told us it is deregulatory in spirit, and we have adopted the canons of EU labour and migration law.

  When people fear a law or think it is stopping them working they want their elected politicians to take that seriously and to be able to amend it. When the law comes from Brussels, the government is no position to do that. The government has honestly to tell the strikers that there is no point in them striking, because even if the government wanted to change the law in the way they would like, it cannot do so without the agreement of most other EU countries, which looks extremely unlikely on this issue.

  Mr Mandelson has correctly concluded that he has to argue it through against the strikers, because there is no other way out of this government impasse. Some of his colleagues clearly think the strikers are right, and from their position facing re-election, wish to show understanding and sympathy for the strikers. This division in the government's approach will make the strike more damaging to the UK, and will make the ultimate disappointment of the workers involved all the greater.

  Labour has given far too much power away to the EU. The official Opposition opposed the transfer of powers in Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon for this very reason. We think we need more accountable politics at home, and more ability of Westminster to either amend or defend the laws when challenged by British voters. Labour's EU policy has been based on the false spin that they wanted all this EU law and had influence over it. Just like their economic policy, it is now falling apart.

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