David Cameron meets today with other presidents and prime ministers to try to secure agreement on his so-called “renegotiation” demands.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, Jeremy Corbyn has delivered a resounding address to the assembled leaders of Socialist and Democrat parties from across Europe (including prime ministers attending the summit) on what genuine EU reform ought to look like:
Labour backs Britain’s continued membership of the EU as the best framework for trade and co-operation in a 21st-century Europe. And we will campaign for Britain to stay when the referendum is finally held.
But people across Britain and Europe know that the EU needs to change if it’s going to work better for the majority of its people, not just its banks and corporations.
Cameron’s timid and lop-sided demands, choreographed for the cameras, won’t achieve that.
Labour will instead be pressing a programme of progressive reform in Europe to deliver positive change for working people.
That means democratic reform to make EU decision-making accountable to its people; economic reform to put jobs and sustainable growth at the centre of European policy; labour market reform to strengthen workers’ rights in a real social Europe; and new rights for elected authorities across Europe to support public enterprise and halt the pressure to privatise services.
We will be working to build progressive alliances across Europe for real reform. That is the opposite of Cameron’s failed posturing aimed at appeasing his own party.
