I remember rolling my eyes at the tabloid rage about the good old banana being ironed out by ridiculous EU regulations. The truth is there never was an absolute regulation on banana shape – which highlights an important point: it’s best not to take anything from either side of the EU referendum debate as an inarguable fact.
I’m aware that some disabled people have been drawn towards a Brexit vote partly because of the grinding yoke of austerity. It’s no wonder that there are fears about the impact of uncontrolled immigration on cash-strapped services, social care and education. This anxiety is understandable, and it would be patronising to imply disabled people are uninformed, ignorant racists who don’t see the bigger picture.
As a disabled person, I support the “remain and reform” view of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. And I echo the conviction of the peer Jane Campbell that our rights are better supported within the EU. As someone who has been on direct payments for 22 years (via social care), I’ve employed large numbers of personal assistants, half of whom have been from other EU countries – mainly Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary. These young women are always polite and conscientious, and most demonstrate a strong sense of responsibility, perhaps due to what could be termed old-fashioned values concerning elderly parents and disabled family members. I have never specified eastern Europeans in my recruitment, but often they were the best candidates.
If we leave the EU, I believe the effects on the broader care industry and the NHS will be catastrophic, a view echoed by the TUC. This reminds us once again that the positives of being an EU member often go unsung. These include collaboration in many medical research programmes; free health cover abroad through the European Health Insurance Card; and EU workers filling staffing gaps in the overstretched NHS (made worse by the ending of training bursaries for UK health workers and ongoing cuts within the service).
If we do find ourselves leaving the EU on Friday, I believe the effects will be felt quickly, as fear and confusion take hold. I’m not wheeling down the streets waving a banner of European Union pride, but I know that the EU gives us much more than mythological bendy banana laws. As disabled academics have recently pointed out, the sharing of initiatives around independent living is supported in back rooms at the EU, including the European Network on Independent Living. From the 90s onwards, Britain has developed a leading role in developing EU disability policy away from charity and welfare and towards equality and human rights. Moreover, the Disability Discrimination Act and EU employment directives have made it harder for employers to discriminate against disabled people, and care workers.
There’s much debate over freedom of movement within the EU. But this is something disabled people have only just been able to experience, and it’s the EU that has ensured disabled passengers will get the assistance they need from transport operators. Remaining an EU member will help to counter calls to leave the European convention on human rights – and mean we still have the EU’s ratification of the UN disability convention, which directs the EU to “harness all its financial, legislative and other tools to benefit disabled people”.
There’s a glaring lack of any considered comments within the mainstream leave campaign on how it will ensure that the rights and services of disabled people continue – other than generalised pronouncements that less EU immigration is a panacea for all our ills.
While I would heartily welcome a Europe more deeply connected through social conscience, workforce and equality responsibilities, I am not keen on the pan-European profit machine that benefits the few. So let’s remain and reform. In my guts I want to be European – but only if that means being a collaborative citizen of the world.
• Penny Pepper will be part of the invited audience on Europe: The Final Debate, chaired by Jeremy Paxman, at 9pm on Channel 4 tomorrow
