In the face of that reality the TUC seeks superficially to score points off the Tory Party – following the inevitable abandonment of its phoney posturing on a post facto (and unenforceable) Lisbon Treaty referendum in the UK. http://www.tuc.org.uk/law/tuc-17198-f0.cfm
Yet no TUC condemnation over the past 4 years of the Labour Party for reneging on its 2005 election manifesto commitment to consult the British people on EU constitutional reforms – eventually embodied in the Lisbon Treaty – and which enshrine liberalisation, monetarism and privatisation across the EU.
The process of European integration and global competition are key driving forces of privatisation across the EU in industries such as railways, telecommunications and are undermining the viability of the Royal Mail as a public service.
The mutual hypocrisy and self serving opportunism of the UK political elite when it comes to european matters is well documented in today’s Guardian by Seumas Milne:
‘for all their huffing and puffing, there are all kinds of interference from Brussels which the Tories don't have any problems with at all. You don't, for example, hear Conservative politicians denouncing the Lisbon treaty for effectively turning the liberalisation and privatisation of public services — transport and energy are the new targets — into a constitutional goal. As even more enthusiastic supporters than New Labour of the neoliberal ideology that underpins such legislation, you wouldn't expect anything else’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/04/cameron-osborne-european-union-sovereignty
And Milne concludes: ‘criticism of the European Union has for too long been dominated by a phoney chauvinistic Euroscepticism that ignores the real interests that have driven its development. Cameron's posturing yesterday about "referendum locks" and a bill to prevent the transfer of further powers to the EU does nothing to challenge that. Like New Labour, the Tories positively embrace loss of democratic or national sovereignty when it comes to corporate, or US, power.’
