Today I’m meeting Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament. Tomorrow, he’s meeting David Cameron to talk about Britain’s future in the EU. I’m asking Martin to make two clear points to David Cameron: 1. Cutting workers’ rights won’t win…Read more…
Kicking the trade agreements can down the road
Trade deals are stalled due to popular pressure In both the European Parliament and Congress. What’s going on? When the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations were launched in 2013, veteran Tory politician Ken Clarke MP was at his most avuncular when he said that…Read more…
#TTIP with the US comes second: #CETA with Canada comes first
Trade deals haven’t been so high profile since the 1999 ‘battle for Seattle’, when the World Trade Organisation was met with a wave of anti-globalisation protests. In the US, first the Senate then the House of Representatives have seen pitched battles over ‘Fast Track’…Read more…
Congress deals blow to trade deals as US wakes up to worker concerns
Just a couple of years ago, US unions attacking trade deals because they cost jobs and lowered wages were accused of bogus economics, protectionism and worse (they still are in some circles.) Now their views are expressed even by centrist Democrats and…Read more…
Cameron’s new migration plans: skills gaps & undercutting need to be divorced from fantasy targets
Yesterday David Cameron announced that he had written to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), the independent body which advises the Home Office on migration policy, asking them to look into ways of reducing non-EU migration for work to the UK in the following ways: restricting work visas to…Read more…
If you mean it, put it in writing: unions to Cameron on NHS & #TTIP
At Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, David Cameron repeated – yet again – his claim that we should trust him that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP – the EU-US trade deal) would have no impact on the NHS. Under fire from Labour Leader Harriet…Read more…
Cameron must come clean about his plans to renegotiate our rights from Europe
When he was asked during Prime Minster’s Questions today about his plans for re-negotiating rights for working people set out originally under the European Social Chapter, David Cameron gave the ominous answer that it would include: “some of the issues under what was called the social…Read more…
#TTIP vote postponed: blow to G7 hopes of an early EU-US trade deal
This afternoon, we heard that the votes in the European Parliament due for Wednesday lunchtime on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had been postponed. Various reasons for the postponement have been given, and there are different explanations of what the postponement means…Read more…
#TTIP: What MEPs will be voting on this Wednesday
This Wednesday, the European Parliament will vote on what message to send to the negotiators of the EU-US trade and investment deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). They won’t (yet) be voting on whether to accept the deal, partly because the vast bulk of it…Read more…
#EUReferendum: Business for Britain’s longest blackmail letter in history
The eurosceptic Business for Britain campaign – not to be confused with the pro-European Business for New Europe campaign – this week issued what you might call ‘the longest blackmail letter’ in history to Prime Minister David Cameron. But they have done us a great service…Read more…
Scotland v Qatar game – SFA must challenge Qatar on workers rights
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Why diet-ISDS is almost as bad as ISDS, and why we should oppose both
The popular outcry against Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), the element of trade deals which gives foreign investors a privileged route to claim compensation for measures they claim cost them future profits, led the European Union Trade Commissioner to come up earlier this month with an…Read more…
#QueensSpeech 2015: Immigration Bill will fuel undercutting and hostility
Today measures for a new Immigration Bill were announced in the Queen’s Speech. The Bill sets out a fundamentally contradictory position, first aired by David Cameron in a speech last week, that you can tackle exploitation of workers by taking their rights away. Helping bad bosses The Bill will…Read more…
#QueensSpeech 2015: Referendum Bill raises yet more questions
The Queen’s Speech today was silent on the hugely important issue of the negotiating strategy the government intends to pursue ahead of the EU referendum, and few other questions were answered by the references to the Bill we expect to see published tomorrow. Speak softly and run like hell…Read more…
EU referendum: workers’ rights and the right to vote are at stake
Tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech will announce an EU referendum bill which will be published on Thursday (although the issue of who gets to vote was trailed over the weekend.) Last Friday, the Prime Minister began his campaign to ‘renegotiate’ Britain’s membership with other…Read more…
Has Europe come up with a better ‘better regulation’ initiative?
Last week, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans launched a ‘better regulation’ initiative. Once you’ve lived through a few dozen of these, you do get a bit jaundiced (I go back to Michael Heseltine’s ‘bonfire of red tape’ in 1994 although the Daily…Read more…
Europe needs to commit on aid
Tomorrow, foreign ministers from across the EU will be meeting and will consider what to do about Europe’s pledge on overseas aid. For the first time, the British minister will be attending with a legal commitment to spend the UN recommended 0.7% of GNI (Gross National Income) on official…Read more…
Doing our bit in Swaziland from Brussels
The Swazi people experience some of the most horrid living conditions on the planet. Under King Mswati II’s absolute rule, very low living standards have become even lower, very high AIDS/HIV prevalence has become even higher. Poverty is widespread, and the rule of law a distant ideal. We…Read more…
Promising little, delivering less: Qatar fails its migrant workers
It’s a resounding defeat for the workers. In five areas there has been limited progress. In four areas there’s been … nothing at all. After all the promises.
The post Promising little, delivering less: Qatar fails its migrant workers appeared first on ToUChstone blog.Read more…
Ireland and marriage: stepping out of the darkness
Tomorrow, Friday 21st of May, Ireland will have a referendum on whether two people of the same gender can marry. It’s the first country in the world to do so, and a long journey from 1995, when it was forced by Europe to decriminalise “male homosexual acts”. Why a referendum?…Read more…