The Home Secretary’s announcement yesterday on post-Brexit immigration plans was barely out the door before the government’s all-encompassing confusion over Brexit enveloped it. Amber Rudd’s junior minister, Brandon Lewis, contradicted her spin if not her substance, almost immediately. Meanwhile, the government continues to fail to take initiatives it could already take which would go a long way…
Last week I was invited to the British-German Forum – a symposium for young people from both countries – at Wilton Park, an agency of the FCO, to talk with my colleague Jan Stern from the German trade union confederation the DGB, about the issues facing globalisation. Here’s an edited version of my remarks. I’m…
You wait for years for the needs of working people to become the focus of political attention and then suddenly everybody’s interested. The onset of the General Election campaign has coincided with the beginning of Brexit negotiations and the long overdue dawning of understanding at the highest reaches of the European Union that working people are disillusioned…
The Financial Times has a story today (behind the paywall) suggesting that the government’s new visa system for EU migrants will have to be enforced not by the Home Office or the Borders Agency but by employers, landlords and universities, because of cuts to the civil service. That would, indeed, build on the government’s existing…
The European Parliament decided today by an overwhelming 516 to 133 votes (nearly four to one) what it thought should be in the eventual EU-UK Brexit deal. And after lobbying from the European trade union movement, MEPs made it crystal clear that any future deal should be conditional on “continued adherence” by the UK to the EU…
The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) is the latest trade association to express serious concerns about how Brexit is being negotiated, with a report setting out the measures needed to sustain the industry – which employs many in the UK, as well as abroad – after Brexit. In particular, ABTA is clear that ‘no…
So much has already been written about the triggering of Article 50, firing the starting gun on two years of negotiations about leaving the European Union. And it was only yesterday. For trade unions, it still seems strange that a Conservative Prime Minister should tell the House if Commons that she is committed to protecting…
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister will trigger Article 50 and fire the starting pistol on negotiations to leave the European Union. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has already adopted a statement setting out what unions here and in the rest of Europe want the EU to do once that happens. Theresa May’s letter may be…
Time was when nothing could be done by the Government or the European Union without a rigorously mapped impact assessment. Almost invariably wielded as a tool by deregulatory zealots to show that workers’ demands would lead to unacceptable burdens on business, I can remember exposing many of the faults in the technique. Too much reliance on…
This morning the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported the findings of a survey that 8% of the construction workforce – about 175,000 people – could be lost to the UK economy as a result of Britain leaving the European Union. That could interfere seriously with the major infrastructure projects that Britain needs to…