Thread by @mdouganlpool

Typical simplistic/misleading "Lexit" shite here: EU's done nothing for workers; free movement trumps everything else... Odd how social & labour lawyers across Europe take totally different view & value/promote EU dimension to worker protection across MSs?
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Said it 100 times before: how can the EU be both a socialist conspiracy to destroy capitalism and yet a capitalist conspiracy to destroy socialism? Oh that's right - because ideological cults need an easy stereotype to repeat over and over, to help boost morale of the faithful...

My very first publication (back in 1999...) was about how EU law gave female UK workers the right to protection against employer retaliation (eg refusing subsequent references) for daring to exercise their right to equal pay - when UK law failed to offer that protection.

As @CSBarnard24 points out in her chapter in my book: recent UK reductions in worker protection have occurred precisely in those areas (like unfair dismissal, access to tribunals) which are NOT subject to minimum EU standards!
eulawatliv.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/the-uk…

@CSBarnard24 Training in Whitehall last week about EU rights. Used example of how UK law allowed employers to manipulate time limits for bringing tribunal claims, to prevent women claiming equal treatment. ECJ stepped in and said: no bloody way. But oh no, EU never did anything for workers...

@CSBarnard24 Reading paper few days ago about famous Coleman case: ECJ insisted UK had to offer protection from harassment not just to disabled workers but also to employees caring for disabled family member. EU says: boss can't sack worker for looking after disabled child - capitalist pigs!

@CSBarnard24 And let's not mention the EU directives setting out minimum standards for workplace equality, part-time/agency/fixed-term work, maternity & parental leave, working time & paid annual leave, workplace safety, collective worker protection for insolvencies/redundancies/transfers...

@CSBarnard24 Let's forget that main reason EU has very limited competence to lay down minimum standards when it comes to collective labour rights / industrial action is because certain MSs, led enthusiastically by our dear UK, consistently refused to allow it. All that sovereignty, you see...

@CSBarnard24 So when Larry Elliott writes in @guardian "[t]he truth is that social Europe never delivered all that much..." he manages to say a lot more about himself than he does about the EU: here is a rather ignorant man suffering from a serious deficit of basic facts or understanding.