We’ve got to get away from this scorched earth politics where if you don’t like something you want to scrap the whole thing. If you don’t like Westminster – burn the whole thing to the ground. Since when in a mature democracy is it sensible to take a scorched earth approach, where every time you don’t like something you bash the nuclear button and blow everything up?

Just just because the Tory isolationists want to do that, the left, the centre left and and progressive forces in this country shouldn’t do so. I have seen it for five years now – parts of the left working themselves up into an absolute lather of indignation about some of the measures we had to do and in consequence – unwittingly perhaps – actually preparing the ground for what we have now got, which is a majority Conservative government.

I do not want to see these early rumblings of disquiet within the trade union movement cascade into something a whole lot worse. It could lead to an exit from the European Union and to profound damage to the life chances of many millions of working people in this country for many years to come. I just don’t think we should have any truck with it at all.