I AM finalising this column on Burns Day morning, a day when many Scots celebrate our national bard, Robert Burns. Rather fittingly, the issue of workers’ rights was to be debated in the House of Commons later on. An appropriate occasion given the bard’s radical instincts and his call for workers’ representatives and women to be elected to Parliament; a call made long before trade unionists and women entered the green benches.

I am also finalising this column just having received confirmation that my name has not been taken for the call list to speak in this debate — an innovation introduced due to Covid-19 restrictions. I will outline below some of the key points I would have raised if called.

Regardless of one’s own view of Brexit, it was always a suspicion that the Farages, Patels, Johnsons and other hard-right figures saw it as a vehicle to eradicate employment rights. Indeed, many of them said so.