‘Grounding the debate’

Brexit will cause average weekly wages to be ÂŁ38 lower by 2030, a TUC report has found.

The Better Off In report also showed that leaving the EU would hit the manufacturing sector hardest, risking jobs outside of London and the South-east and further widening inequalities across the UK.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady called for a change in direction of a debate that has “so far been dominated by business interests.”

Instead of turning on the television and seeing “a captain of industry accompanied by a politician in a hi-vis jacket talking about the pros and cons of the EU”, O’Grady said the interests of working people needed to be properly represented.

‘Chicken feed’

She said, “£38 a week may not be much for politicians such as Boris Johnson – a man who described his £250,000 fee for a weekly newspaper column as ‘chicken feed’.

“But for millions of workers, it’s the difference between heating or eating, between struggling or saving, and between getting by or getting on.”

The report warned that the 50 per cent of British manufacturing exports that currently go to EU would be put a risk by a leave vote and emphasised EU support for “hundreds of thousands of high-pay, high-skill, high-productivity manufacturing jobs.”

Workers’ rights would also be under threat, said the report, as EU membership guaranteed protections for equal pay, health and safety, maternity rights, working time limits, paid holidays, part-time work and anti-discrimination legislation.

“The EU has delivered important rights for working people, particularly women. A Leave vote would give Conservative ministers the green light to repeal laws they have long dismissed as burdens on business,” said O’Grady.

“Post-Brexit, it isn’t hard to imagine a Conservative government watering down some of these protections for some or all workers.”

Analysis

The TUC estimates of lowered wages are reinforced by analysis on how Britain’s GDP will be affected by Brexit, carried out by a plethora of leading economic institutions.

By 2030 the research shows that weekly wages will not fall by ÂŁ38, but that they will be ÂŁ38 lower than they would have been if economic conditions had not been damaged by Brexit.

The TUC report came at the same time as Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) analysis estimated that staying in the EU could create more than 100,000 British manufacturing jobs by 2030.

Leaving the EU would put every single one of these jobs in jeopardy, the CEBR asserted.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner hailed a welcomed change in the debate’s direction, saying it was about time the real threat to Britain was emphasised.

He said, “With the referendum debate becoming increasingly toxic and marked by Leave caricatures, this work by the TUC helps to ground the debate in the negatives of leaving for ordinary working people.

“Together with Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on the need to remain and progressively reform the EU, with the greatest threat to working people coming from this Conservative government, ordinary voices are beginning to be heard in the EU referendum debate.”