This article first appeared in The Scotsman on 030209 

 It’s About Time Labour Really stood up for British workers Rights 

The party will pay a high prices if it continues to oppose better employment rights across Europe, says HUGH KERR 

THE sight of British workers on picket lines demanding "British jobs for British workers" is entirely predictable and is due to the actions of Gordon Brown with his disgraceful dogwhistle speech to the TUC in 2007. Moreover, "British jobs for British workers" is something he not only knew he could not deliver, it was a policy he was actively resisting in Brussels.

The Labour government has consistently blocked European safeguards for all workers in Europe, including British workers. The biggest opponent of these progressive moves has been Gordon Brown, both as chancellor and as prime minister.

For instance, the Posted Workers Directive which triggered the current dispute first was blocked and then subsequently watered down by the UK government. Companies have been able to exploit these loopholes, backed up by European Court judgments which condone the employment of foreign workers being brought in at lower wages than local workers.

Now we have Cabinet ministers such as Alan Johnson saying "we should change European law if necessary". Well, sorry Alan: why don't you speak to Gordon?

As a former Labour MEP, these latest events don't surprise me. In 1997, in the first few days of the new Labour government, we were visited by the minister for industry, Lord Simon. His message to the 62 Labour MEPs was "do nothing which will harm the interests of British industry and the City of London".

I asked him whether it was a Labour government we had just elected and he said: "This message comes straight from Tony and Gordon."

I also asked Lord Simon when he had joined the Labour Party and he said "a very good point. I suppose I must join soon!". I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised – he had up until a few days previously been chairman of BP.

This pro-business and anti-trade union attitude was to permeate Labour's attitude to European issues thereafter. Take another example. Last year, Grangemouth oil refinery workers came out on strike to defend their pensions, which were being eroded by the company which had bought the refinery from BP. The workers should have been protected by the Acquired Rights Directive, which I took through the European Parliament.

Unfortunately, when the directive went from the parliament to the Council of Ministers, with a Labour minister in the chair, it was watered down and pension rights element removed. That Labour minister was Ian McCartney, then employment minister. Mr McCartney is still an MP but after he left office he became an adviser to Fluor, an American company pitching for British contracts in the nuclear power industry. His £115,000 annual fee recorded in the Register of Members' Interests is almost twice his salary as the back-bench MP for Makerfield. Ian McCartney is also a member of the best pension scheme going the MPs' scheme. I know: I am also a member.

Since 1997, supposedly in the interests of economic efficiency, Labour governments have resisted, blocked and watered down a whole range of European directives: on temporary and agency workers, on the working time directive, and on the consultation and information of workers.

The Posted Workers Directive is only one instance of this process. The directive came into force in 1999. It was meant to protect European employees' rights when working abroad on contract, and to avoid what has become known as "social dumping". But thanks to British resistance, it was weakly drafted and recent court judgments have undermined it further. This recent interpretation leads to wage rates being driven down to the lowest level in the EU. This will not worry Gordon Brown, since he and Blair not only failed to repeal the Tory anti-trade union legislation in Britain but used to boast regularly that Britain had the most lightly regulated labour market in Europe.

British workers are quite right to go on strike to protect their jobs. However, political action is also needed to protect workers across Europe. The European Trade Union Congress has been mounting a campaign to add a social protocol to the Lisbon Treaty which would enshrine workers rights in EU law. The ETUC campaign is backed by a majority of the European Parliament, including British Labour MEP Steve Hughes who points out that the biggest obstacle to getting a new protocol is yes, you have guessed it the British government.

My sources in Brussels tell me that at the EU employment ministers meeting in December, the Posted Workers Directive was actually on the agenda. But the British representative said they were opposed to improving the directive and the meeting was mainly taken up arguing on the Working Time Directive.

In Europe, everyone is trying to end the British opt out of the Working Time Directive, which limits the hours of work to no more than 48 hours. However, the Labour government is fighting a rearguard action to stop it being applied in the UK. Incidentally, the minister involved in December was another Scot, Pat McFadden MP.

British workers are right to resist threats to their jobs. I am sure there is some xenophobia involved which will be exploited by the BNP, UKIP and some sections of the Tory Party. Indeed, in the present economic and political climate, there is a real danger of a BNP MEP being elected in the North-west of England at the European elections in June.

Trade unionists and socialists will do their best to resist such xenophobia. But a key part of their demands must be that the Labour government stands up for them in attempting to improve European employment laws rather than undermining them.

Otherwise, not only will Labour be defeated at the European elections, it will be wiped out in the next general election. And it will deserve it.

• Hugh Kerr was a Labour MEP from 1994-8 and a member of the employment committee of the European Parliament.