EU membership has ensured the UK has signed up to, among other things, workers’ rights, minimum wage, pollution controls, environmental protection and human rights without which we could all be at risk of exploitation or worse.
Most importantly the existence of the EU has ensured no wars between European countries since 1945. Certainly the EU needs reforming and so do UK central Government structures and all of the UK’s electoral systems.
The need for reforms is not a reason to throw out or reject the protection of something basically good. It is this same argument ‘It’s not fit for purpose as it is’ – that has seen us lose NHS dentists, local authority-run care and children’s homes and local authority protection of schools.
And the same argument is now losing us our precious NHS.
Rejecting any democratically accountable institution lock stock and barrel instead of working to improve it works against, not for, the common good, and threatens our safety, our rights and our democracy. We need to build on, not reject, the unifying work of our forebears when it comes to democracy and the EU.
SUSHILA DHALL
Chair, Oxfordshire Green Party
Stable Close
Rewley Park
Oxford
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