Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
How the European Union captured the labour movement
In 1988, the late Jack Delors ‘sold’ the EU as the future of industrial and economic harmony to a much-diminished TUC — instead of more protection for workers’ rights, what came next was a neoliberal coup, writes NICK WRIGHT

THE YEAR was 1987. Thatcher had signed the Single European Act. This signalled Britain’s fuller integration into what became the European Union.

With sovereignty surrendered, the pressure for a reversal of the labour movement’s long-standing opposition to European capitalist integration intensified.

In the late 1980s, the labour movement was in bad shape. A slump conjoined with a Thatcherite destruction of manufacturing capacity and Thatcher’s deregulation of the financial markets — combined with the unashamed “monetarist” fiscal policies she and her chancellor pursued — drove unemployment over three million.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
waves
Book Review / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025

MARTIN HALL welcomes a study of Britain’s relationship with the EU that sheds light on the way euroscepticism moved from the margins to the centre

Guillaume Périgois
Politics / 14 August 2025
14 August 2025

Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer listens to a question from the press, after making a statement in Downing Street, London, July 29, 2025
Neoliberalism / 31 July 2025
31 July 2025

Deep disillusionment with the Westminster cross-party consensus means rupture with the status quo is on the cards – bringing not only opportunities but also dangers, says NICK WRIGHT

CHANGING TIMES: Delegates at a South African Communist Party national congress at the University of Johannesburg. Photo: GCIS/Creative Commons
Features / 17 July 2025
17 July 2025

The shared path of the South African Communist Party and the ANC to the ballot box has found itself at a junction. SABINA PRICE reports