Why stay in the EU? Fight together to defend our rights

Serious criticisms can be levelled against the EU, particularly its austerity and cuts agenda – but those same policies would be implemented by our government anyway. The fact is we still have a range of rights from our EU membership: the right to free movement – to live, work and retire across Europe; and social and economic rights enshrined in EU law that would be threatened by Brexit.

If we leave the EU, our rights on age discrimination, equal pay for work of equal value, disability rights and guaranteed holiday pay would be under threat and women workers would be disproportionately impacted. Of course the labour and trade union movement here would fight to retain these rights but they would be up against a strengthened right-wing Tory government which would take full advantage of Brexit to deregulate and attack our rights and conditions – even those which we won before the EU.

Some say we should leave the EU to get out of free market agreements like TTIP – the secret free trade negotiations between the EU and the USA. But if we leave the EU we’ll face the same policies even if under a different name. These are struggles that need to be engaged at a European level – they cannot be solved at a national level. German workers have demonstrated in their tens of thousands against TTIP and a mass movement has to be built across Europe – joint struggle is necessary to win.

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