Brexit will hurt Ireland
The ICTU’s Macdara Doyle claims Brexit could hit Irish jobs and will have repercussions for employment rights across Europe.
There was virtually no mention of Brexit during the recent election campaign.
The issue was also absent from the protracted negotiations that took place in advance of the new government taking office. Yet the outcome of the vote on 23 June is of enormous significance for everyone on this island.
Should the UK decide to leave the European Union, then we will almost certainly see the creation, in the not too distant future, of an EU land border on this island, accompanied by the introduction of customs posts and ‘immigration controls’. That prospect alone should serve to concentrate minds.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is the largest civil society body on the island, with some 200,000 members in Northern Ireland. Congress – supported by a strong majority of affiliated unions – has taken a clear position of opposition to Brexit. Congress in Northern Ireland has called on working people “to vote to remain (in the EU), for the stability of the economy of Northern Ireland, for the security of their jobs and for their rights as workers.”
For the last seven years it has punished the citizens of Europe – financially and socially – because of a collapse in the banking system. Now it needs the citizenry to rally round but citizens often find it hard to work up the enthusiasm. The former German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer has pointed out that “crisis management has become Europe’s new normal.”
And this helped fuelling the Brexit impetus: “Indeed, a massive crisis of trust vis-à-vis Europe and its institutions has developed in most EU member states,” says Fishcer. “This crisis is fuelling a revival of nationalist political parties and ideas and a slackening of European solidarity. The re-nationalisation of Europe is accelerating, making this crisis the most dangerous of all, as it threatens disintegration from within.”
It is clear that a key driver of Brexit is found on the far right of the British Conservative party. Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress in the UK, who also oppose Brexit, has pointed out that many employment protections – parental leave, paid holidays, equal treatment for agency workers and part-timers– are underpinned by EU law.
In the event of a Brexit, workers in Northern Ireland simply could not trust any government to maintain and protect those rights. And if labour protections in the UK and Northern Ireland were weakened, that will put downward pressure on standards here and across Europe.
To date, the most significant analysis of the likely economic impact of Brexit on Norther Ireland has been carried out by the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI), in a recently published research paper. It pointed out that Northern Ireland accounted for just 2 per cent of the UK population and was the “most peripheral region of the United Kingdom, both geographically and politically.”
It concluded the impact would be overwhelmingly negative and Northern Ireland was “likely to be the region most affected by a UK exit from the EU.” This would be felt in: trade, jobs, foreign direct investment and the energy sector. Indeed the ‘trade disruption’ that would flow from a Brexit would particularly harm sectors like food and agriculture and manufacturing.
Ultimately, Brexit could cost tens of thousands of good quality jobs across the island and spark an EU wide race to the bottom on labour protection and other critical standards.
It would leave us all poorer.
