The Tory MP for Shrewsbury, Daniel Kawczynski, has tabled an interesting amendment which would require the government to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty to insert a declaration that the EU is based on its Christian faith, heritage, culture and history. Where have we heard this before? The Polish government gave up, in the end, on the attempt to get Christianity into the treaty; but the member for Poland – sorry, Shrewsbury – is obviously going to mount a last stand.
In that same amendment paper are amendments tabled by a number of Labour MPs, including failed deputry leadership candidate Jon Cruddas and former health secretary Frank Dobson, which aim in effect at protecting the NHS from the impact of EU law: I sense a highly traditionalist Labour Europsceptic argument behind this. It’s not obvious exactly what the amendments are aimed at achieving (Parliamentary control of EU rules on the NHS? or a complete exemption for the NHS?), though it must be this sort of thing that these MPs fear. But surely they agree that EU laws like the working time directive should apply in the NHS, as they do at the moment. What about the workers?
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