Sly Tories to target wages after Brexit

WHEN British workers are undercut by overseas staff it’s all too easy to point the finger at the European Union.

The EU is a handy scapegoat but the blame for low pay actually lies in London not Brussels.

One industrial dispute perfectly highlights how, as we push on towards Brexit, responsibility rests with this Government – Tories hostile to decent employment rights – and fatcat bosses slashing rates.

Our politicians have let a Danish firm build a waste energy plant in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, using Croatians apparently on nearly £12 an hour below the industry rate.

The Unite trade union reckons they were on minimum wage, £7.50 an hour, instead of the industry agreed £19.34.

Britain, with Poland and Lithuania, have formed an unholy trinity among the EU’s 28 member states by refusing to insist workers crossing national borders are on the appropriate negotiated rate.

So fault rests not with shortchanged workers or even an EU, open to occasionally justifiable criticism, but a British Government greenlighting exploitation and lower wages. The disastrous implementation of a diluted version of the Posted Workers Directive, first by Labour and now the Tories, fuels resentment.

It deflects responsibility for low pay and masks a free-market drive to reduce earnings thus saving companies “costs” and boosting profits.

Forcing firms to pay the rate for the job to every worker would raise wages, enhance community relations and increase the employment of Britons. Unite and GMB workers demonstrating outside the Rotherham project and another in Sandwich, Kent, weren’t blind to the grim fact that firms from other parts of Europe permitted to exploit workers in Britain couldn’t get away with it in their homelands.

Pinning responsibility for undercutting on the EU is another red herring, like Eurocrats’ mythical banning of “straight bananas”.

Our Prime Minister could insist on higher standards but doesn’t, and the UK Parliament has the power to improve employment conditions yet refuses to do so.

Freed from EU controls and with anti-trade unionism in the party’s DNA, a Tory Government in the pocket of City spivs and speculators will weaken job protection.

The “red tape” the Conservatives vow to cut includes workplace rights, and Tory fanatics, led by International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, are chomping at the bit to deregulate or end safeguards in areas such as hours, paid holidays and health and safety. UKIP’s Brexit elite, Nigel Farage and diamond mine owner Arron Banks, are former Tories.

Brexit Britain will be a nightmare for British workers.