It is kind of the Labour Party to make it so blazingly obvious that they still long to slide back into the European Union. For years they have claimed to have cured themselves of their urge to merge the country into the laws, economy and institutions of the Superstate. But they haven't, really.
Starmer's Zig-Zag on Europe
Sir Keir Starmer, who has zig-zagged on the matter like a wartime convoy, claims to oppose a return to the EU's Single Market. Yet we now learn that an emissary from the Cabinet Office has been in Brussels, silkily suggesting a new Single Market for goods. Presumably somebody told the Prime Minister about these approaches, but the voters have only learned about them because the eurocrats have given us the brush-off. They want something a lot more binding and a lot more difficult, and have, as usual, responded to our weakness by tightening their demands.
Anyone foolish enough to try to reverse Brexit should grasp that the EU will strip us bare in any re-entry talks. But the Labour elite don't get it because they instinctively prefer the EU's Ode To Joy anthem to God Save The King. Alas for them – and luckily for us – many actual Labour voters take the opposite view.
Andy Burnham's Changing Tune
Only Andy Burnham, who cannot storm Downing Street unless he first wins the votes of the people of Makerfield, is less eurocratic than he was six months ago. But how long will that last? Labour still longs to be back inside the EU. We have been warned.
Teacher Strikes Hurt Pupils and Parents
Those who wield the power of the strike sometimes forget it is a brutal and dangerous weapon. The more responsible your job is, the more harm you can do by withdrawing your labour. Teachers do not have quite so much power as doctors. Most of their importance rests in the good that they can do for the young while they are at work, and which does not get done if they walk out.
But in a world where millions of parents both go out to work, term-time school closures are a disaster. So teachers need a very good reason indeed for going on strike, and laws which have made such strikes difficult have been a good thing for education, for children and for their parents.
NEU Threatens Post-Christmas Walkouts
Now a Mail on Sunday investigation has found that the biggest teaching organisation, the National Education Union (NEU), is threatening to use new weaker ballot laws – brought in by the Starmer government to appease its Left – to bring about post-Christmas walkouts. We are also promised schools flooded with propaganda and a general blaze of ultra-Left activism. Is this really a serious attempt to improve the lot of teachers, or is it a militant leadership flexing its new muscles, as some NEU members claim?
Whatever the answer, the main victims will be the pupils whose classes will be cancelled, and the parents forced to fund costly childcare so they can stay at work. Those who inflict such pain cannot honestly claim to be campaigning for the general good.
