THE Conservative Party’s plans to restrict the ability of unions to call for effective industrial action, particularly in the public sector, show just how determined it is to stifle legitimate opposition to its failed austerity and industrial policies.

For the Conservatives, if you can’t win the argument, then make it impossible for your opponents to have their voices heard.

Writing in the Telegraph, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced plans, in the event of a Tory election victory, for unions in the public sector to be required to achieve the support of 40 per cent of those entitled to vote before industrial action can take place.

Further plans would remove the ban on the use of agency workers during industrial action.

The rationale is ending “misery for millions of people” and as “the party that backs hardworking taxpayers, who wants them to go on about their lives, commuting to work, taking their kids to school, we Conservatives can’t just stand idly by.”

But if it’s time to toughen the laws what’s the context?

In the words of the European Court of Human Rights in a judgment about secondary action in April 2014, Britain’s industrial action laws stand at “one end of the comparative spectrum.”

Equally well documented is the stream of criticism levelled at Britain over several decades by the supervisory bodies of international treaties to which Britain is a signatory over the failure of its industrial action laws to comply with minimum standards of international law.

The reality is that this isn’t just about trade union law, it’s about the rule of the law and the ability of legitimate opponents of coalition policy to mount an effective protest.

It needs to be seen in the context of other EU countries but also in the light of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act and its impact on the ability to speak out and object to the policies of this government.

The International Labour Organisation’s freedom of association committee, the European Committee on Social Rights and others have condemned Britain’s industrial action laws as violating international law binding on Britain.

If we are a nation that abides by the rule of law — and it is incontestable that international law is included — then that should mean abiding by laws protecting the activities of those who oppose the policies of the government in power.

A related justification often put forward by the Conservatives for a threshold percentage of support before industrial action can take place — and indeed for the Membership Audit Certificate requirements in the Transparency of Lobbying Act — is democratic accountability to a union’s members.

That’s a bit rich when a similar threshold requirement for the election of MPs would see most promoters of these measures out of a job.

If these plans were really about democratic accountability then the government could surely not contest the call from the TUC’s Frances O’Grady to implement the existing power contained in the Employment Relations Act 2004 to permit electronic voting in trade union ballots.

But, as she says, these latest plans aren’t about democratic accountability. They’re about making it impossible for trade unions to organise industrial action in the public sector.

And it’s also worth reflecting on just who these trade union members in the public sector are, who we are told are so intent on “causing misery for millions of people.” They are teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, classroom assistants, care workers — and the 50 per cent-plus of members of the Royal College of Midwives who voted in favour of strike action in opposition to the destruction of the NHS that they cherish.

These aren’t workers “intent on causing misery.” In fact they’re the “hardworking taxpayers” whom McLoughlin says the Conservatives want to “go on about their lives, commuting to work, taking their kids to school.”

But they are angry because they have had their pensions slashed and their pay frozen to pay for the havoc wreaked on the economy by the bankers who support the Conservatives.

McLoughlin’s party isn’t the party of “hardworking taxpayers.” It’s the party of its friends in the City, many of whom seem to work hardest to avoid paying their taxes.

Richard Arthur is head of trade union law at Thompsons Solicitors.