MacShame bids for the unions

Our egregious minister for Europe has been scribbling in Le Monde, to tell the trade unions that they would be much stronger under the EU constitution – by virtue of it containing the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which protects workers rights.

This is, of course, the document that one of his predecessors told us would have "no more significance than the Beano", yet it now seems to set to become one of the main selling points of the constitution. How times do change.

With that in mind, MacShame has told his French audience that a "no" vote on the constitution would be a disaster for the unions. "It would be an error for the European left, a disaster for the unions, and would endanger the future of 300 million European workers," he wrote.

Strangely, there is at this moment no particular sense of impending disaster for the unions, who seem to be managing quite nicely thank you, without the constitution. But then, given the powers they acquired through the Amsterdam Treaty (see previous Blog), they seem to have acquired most of what they could wish for anyway.