Why stay in the EU? We reject ‘divide and rule’

There is a race to the bottom in the terms and conditions of the lowest paid, the most exploited workers. Bad contracts, poor and unsafe working conditions, and poverty pay are found in many sectors. But it’s about employers driving down working class living standards and taking advantage of the workforce to increase their own profits. This isn’t the fault of the migrants.

Safety nets like the agricultural wages board were abolished on the insistence of big business.

There has been a general retreat in workers’ rights and conditions, and weakening of trade unions over the last decades. This started with the free-market, deregulatory policies of our ruling class, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. Britain led the way with these policies in Europe. Only proper trade union rights and collective bargaining can begin to solve this. Anti-migrant xenophobia undermines our fight back. It obscurs the real reasons for the problems we face. We must reject employers’ ‘divide and rule’ methods, setting one worker against another, wherever they come from.

We need a living wage and secure contracts for all so that employers cannot lay off one group of workers  and employ others at lower rates of pay – whether they are migrant workers or not.

We can build a better Europe by working across Europe – in solidarity with other workers and communities. From Wigan to Warsaw, from London to Lisbon, Birmingham to Barcelona, Athens to Manchester, Dundee to Dublin, we can link our struggles for democracy, for universal healthcare, for housing, for decent wages and trade union rights.

Across Europe people are fighting back against austerity and poverty. Campaigns for water in Ireland, for housing in Spain, for women’s rights in Poland, for workers’ rights in France, are strong allies in fighting for a Solidarity Europe.

In a Brexit Britain, we would still face austerity and poverty – the rotten policies of our government would still be here. And we would cut ourselves off from our allies: the peoples of Europe in our shared and common struggles. Unity is strength and that means unity of working people, poor and exploited people, across borders.

Movements of resistance, movements that want to link up across Europe are growing. We need to be with those movements, to change Europe, to create a real alternative.

Left Unity is working as part of the Another Europe is Possible campaign.

We say Vote Remain: and fight for the unity of the people, for a Europe of solidarity