Lisbon Treaty (No. 3)

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend says, and I am sure that he will pursue it at greater length later in the debate. What I find most sad and perverse about this whole sorry saga is that, over time, this claimed uniqueness for the UK will almost certainly increasingly unravel. It will be eroded by ECJ judgments, which are quite likely to happen, and also by the interactive knock-on effects between title IV and the other parts of the protocol. It seems to me tragic that the Government are investing such enormous legal and logistical resources in resisting something on which they are all too likely to lose in the end, yet which every other country in Europe has decided is practical and desirable. I simply do not understand why the Government have got themselves into that position unless it is fear of the Eurosceptic press. That is the only other consideration that I can think of, but I hope that that is not the case. For any Labour Government, enforcing a justiciable charter of fundamental rights should be integral to securing a social Europe to counter the neo-liberal orientations of the EU treaties. That is starkly illustrated by the Viking and Vaxholm cases, which were mentioned earlier. Two months ago, the Swedish and Finnish unions sought to prevent companies from massively undercutting pay rates by paying foreign workers up to 60 per cent. lower wage rates. However, the ruling was—this makes it so interesting and important—that although there was a fundamental right to take collective industrial action, such action represents a restriction on the employer's right of freedom of establishment. Of course, industrial action by its very nature will be an obstacle on the activities and freedom of the company. In other words, an employer's right to freedom of establishment trumps the union's right to strike. That is worryingly reminiscent, if I may say so, of the infamous judgment in the Taff Vale case of 1901. The Taff Vale railway took the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to court for having the audacity to go on strike. The crime was known then as being ““in restraint of trade””. Perhaps all that has changed is the terminology, because we are now talking about exactly the same point but it is now called freedom of establishment. Nor is that an isolated example of the neo-liberal propensities within the EU treaties. The Lisbon treaty adopted the curious word—I had never heard it before—““flexicurity”” to give the wholly false impression that if workers embrace flexibility, job security will automatically follow. Some of us might regard that as a contradiction in terms.