PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

Parliamentary column RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: september 2011 :: RMTnews 9 The People’s Pledge is a new campaign which wants the British people to have the chance to vote in a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. It has support from across the political spectrum, with trade unionists, writers and MPs from the main parties. On Saturday October 22 we will be holding a major congress at the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Bob Crow and RMT president Alex Gordon will will be speaking together with Labour MPs John Cryer, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer and myself, among many others. The choice we, together with the other peoples of the EU member states, now face is do we accept being primarily governed from Brussels or should political power reside with those we elect to the Westminster parliament? In response to the crisis in the eurozone, the EU – with the full support of David Cameron – is seeking to centralise a further set of powers in Brussels. This is designed to establish ‘European economic governance’. This will include elected governments having to present their budgets to the unelected Commission for approval before they can be voted on by their national parliaments. Brussels will then be able to apply the type of sado-monetarist policies on member governments that it is currently applying to the three eurozone countries receiving bailouts. Greece, for example, as a condition of getting the loans has been told to privatise a range of state assets including its railways. The plan is to push through most of the economic governance agenda by re- defining article 136 of the Lisbon treaty. This is a devious device to prevent the package of changes being even debated or subject to referendums as it will not officially constitute a treaty change. The coalition government pushed a vote through the Commons in March giving it the authority to agree to the proposed changes in Brussels later this year. We have reached a stage at which EU directives and regulations now account for approximately half of national law, and that before the Lisbon Treaty has really kicked in. Britain has less than 10 per cent of the votes in the key decision- making bodies. Some of the directives coming out of Brussels have huge implications for public services. We have seen the profitable parts of the Royal Mail handed over to big private companies and our railway system broken up under directive 91/440 and various EU rail packages. I wish to see a Labour government coming into office on a democratic socialist platform and free to rebuild what Margaret Thatcher and her successors have destroyed. I do not wish to see such a government told by the EU that its policies are unacceptable and menaced by legal threats. Democrats want to be able to choose who governs them and for such governments to enact policies they commit to in their manifestoes. Some will choose the EU and others will choose national parliaments, but we should have that choice. I am among those on the left who believe that Europe can and should be a free association of independent democratic states working together for mutual agreement on specific matters, but not governed by a supranational structure taking power to itself and away from national parliaments. Norway and Switzerland have good relations with the EU, but are not members of it. Britain could happily enjoy a similar relationship and after a possible “No” vote in our own referendum, other member states might choose to follow that example and promote a happier, more comradely and democratic Europe for the future. You can sign up to the People’s Pledge at www.peoplespledge.org. Kelvin Hopkins Labour MP for Luton North JOIN THE PEOPLE’S PLEDGE! R MT has warned that thousands of jobs are under threat from David Cameron’s “big society” programme as the Isle of Wight became the first area to use the threat of bus service cuts to replace paid staff with volunteers. Wight Bus service had been due to be closed at the end of August as part of a £280,000 transport cuts package bulldozed through by the Conservative- led authority. The council has now found the money to set up a volunteer, “big society” operation, called the Heron Line, under the umbrella of Southern Vectis. RMT regional organiser Peter Skelly said that passengers feel a lot safer when they know there is a fully paid and resourced driver at the wheel. “How would they feel if volunteers started driving trains? "Bus companies up and down the country will be watching this to see what they can get away with. The only solution to this kind of problem is a publicly owned, publicly funded national bus corporation,” he said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that there was no doubt that the Isle of Wight had been chosen in a deeply cynical and opportunist fashion as a pilot for a drive to replace paid bus workers with unpaid volunteers. “David Cameron has repeatedly denied that the Big Society is about dumping paid staff and replacing them with unpaid volunteers and yet that is exactly what is happening on the Isle of Wight in what we believe is nothing more than a testing ground for a policy ready for roll-out across the rest of the country. “David Cameron has been caught lying to the British people about the true nature of his ‘big society’ con trick. “We know that bus services are under increasing attack from ConDem austerity cuts the length and breadth of the country and we now have the clearest evidence that the big society will be used as a battering ram to replace skilled and experienced staff with ad- hoc volunteers putting thousands of jobs at risk. “RMT will fight this attack on bus services and bus staff, with every tool at our disposal,” he said. ISLE OF WIGHT TORIES TO REPLACE BUS STAFF WITH VOLUNTEERS