It took merely two days for Jeremy Corbyn to bow before Brussels and become the Alexis Tsipras of the Labour party (Corbyn rules out fighting for Britain to leave EU, 17 September). And he has done this at the very time that Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, has been told by the committee investigating Luxembourg tax deals that the hearing would not seriously damage him when he was questioned about his role in overseeing a system, while prime minister of Luxembourg, in which as many as 340 sweetheart deals were allowed with multinational companies in that country – including PepsiCo and Ikea – to reduce their legal tax burdens as low as 1%. Meanwhile unemployment in the EU remains at 11% and youth unemployment in southern Europe at 40%-50%. We have already seen the terms that Tsipras was forced to accept for Greece. It seems that Corbyn – like that other economic genius, Alan Johnson, and indeed like so many in the so-called “Labour” movement – immediately loses grip on his mental faculties whenever Europe is mentioned. Do they honestly believe that workers’ rights will be protected by Juncker, Schäuble and their ilk? Labour deserves to disappear.
Professor Alan Sked
LSE
• Corbyn’s reaffirmation of his initial position (Jeremy Corbyn backs British membership of EU, 28 July) “to fight for a better Europe” is most welcome. Paul Kenny’s GMB advocacy of leaving if Cameron manages to get some opt-outs from EU workers’ rights is shortsighted and self-defeating. The EU still offers better employment and union rights than a Tory Britain on its own; and a future government can restore any lost rights if the UK is still in the EU. Why leave it for a more toxic “Little Britain”, or a more chauvinist “Little England” if Scotland stays in the EU? With an EU external border entrenching Irish partition and probably wrecking the “peace process”? And losing how many jobs after four decades in the EEC/EU? Socialists followingKenny could have a lot of explaining to do.
This is not 1975 but left Euroscepticism and defensive backward-looking insularity could still pose a problem (Corbyn will struggle to hold his line over Europe, 18 September). Here the obvious answer is hopeful, forward-looking internationalism. Along with anti-austerity coalitions across the EU, including the SNP and the Greens, and groups like Podemos in Spain, People before Profit in Ireland, Syriza in Greece and Der Linke in Germany, Corbyn needs to embark immediately on the “fight for a better Europe”.
James Anderson
Professor emeritus, Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen’s University Belfast
• The EU referendum will be a device that attempts to paper over a deep split in the Conservative party. Why should anyone other than these protagonists participate? A campaign for abstention by the main opposition parties would expose this, the unrepresentative turnout giving a meaningless referendum result.
Such a result, whichever way it went, would give the Commons no reason to change Britain’s current relationship with the EU. Britain’s membership and its terms are matters that ought to be decided by MPs, who have access to and time to consider the technical information. Isn’t this the sort of thing we elect them to do?
Roger Joanes
George Nympton, Devon
• Various broadcast interviews last week, such as that with the head of the TUC, emphasised that Corbyn and the TUC could advocate EU exit if Cameron’s EU negotiations result in some reduced rights for British workers. This is wholly irrational: leaving the EU would leave the Tories free from all EU constraints and free to go even further in cutting social and employment regulations.
Malcolm Levitt
London
