Monday, February 23, 2009

TULO Parliamentary Reception for Claude Moraes MEP and Anne Fairweather

Just back from this TULO meeting at the House of Commons which was sponsored by Islington South & Finsbury MP, Emily Thornberry.

Emily is on the left of the photo addressing the meeting while Claude and Anne are standing on the right.

Claude is defending his seat with with fellow MEP Mary Honeyball. While Anne Fairweather is trying to be elected for the first time as a London MEP. Anne is in 3rd place in the Labour Party list for London (its a PR election). At the moment Labour holds 3 out of 9 MEPs but the number of London MEPs is decreasing at the June election to 8 (due to new countries joining the EU).

Claude spoke about the importance of ensuring that enough Labour MEPs are elected in order to help their fellow socialists in the European parliament continue to pass progressive policies such as the new rights for agency workers and ending the opt out from the Working Time Directive. Also they have passed much needed social legislation such as European Works Councils and the landmark proposal for an EU wide ban on discrimination in the provision of goods and services. Labour MEPs are also fighting the threats to trade union collective agreements following the adverse legal judgments of Viking, Lavall & Ruffert.

The message is don’t let anyone (or any Tory tabloid) tell you that the elections in June are not important.

I had a chat afterwards with Claude and Emily about attending possible Worker Memorial Day (WMD) events. Which I will see if I can organise via TULO. While Anne accepted an invitation to help out in the Newham Royal Docks by-election.

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