Labour conference has been debating the EU referendum this morning and there was not a scintilla of indication that the party wants to do anything but vigorously campaign stay in. The main issue raised was workers’ rights — Alan Johnson, who is leading Labour’s campaign to remain in the EU, said ‘there is no progressive case for leaving the EU’ and pointed towards the Trade Union Bill as an example of how the government doesn’t care about this issue:
‘We know how this government feels about workers’ rights. The trade union bill did not come from Europe. That nasty, spiteful, repressive bill would not have emanated from any other mainstream, right of centre party anywhere in Europe other than the Conservative party in Britain.’
Johnson also urged Labour to run a campaign from the bottom up, one that ‘has to start now, not at some unspecific time determined by David Cameron’.
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