If the European Union is serious about becoming more competitive, the last thing it should be doing is dictating the work schedules of people from Cape Trafalgar to the Gulf of Finland. Yet yesterday’s decision by MEPs to abolish the opt-out from the Working Time Directive is an attempt to do exactly that: to impose a 48-hour week regardless of circumstance, need or opportunity. Despite the European Commission’s claims to have had a Damascene conversion to flexible working practices, the European Parliament seems to be bent on imposing restrictions on the region’s people.

MEPs took their absurd decision despite mounting concern that inflexibility and over-regulation are stifling economic growth. France is trying to scrap its 35-hour week to stimulate an economy in which unemployment is running at almost 10 per cent. British hospitals already complain that the Working Time Directive is having a profound effect on doctors’ hours when the NHS is suffering an acute shortage of medical staff. With fewer people working a traditional five-day week, the idea that someone in Brussels or Strasbourg should prevent them from deciding their working hours, or how much overtime pay they can take home, is draconian. Yet MEPs, shuttling between their comfortable offices on equally comfortable expenses, shout about “health and safety” as a cloak for imposing blanket social controls of a kind more in character with the Soviet Union.

Since the Conservative Government negotiated the opt-out from the directive in 1993, about a third of British employees have signed up. The current proposals would make it illegal for them to work more than 48 hours a week even if both employer and employee agreed: despite the voluntary nature of the agreements, trade unions are concerned about bullying by employers. The Parliament has also endorsed a European Court of Justice judgment that doctors’ on-call hours should be counted as working time, even if they are asleep. This is ridiculous.

What was most striking about the decision yesterday was the defiance of Labour MEPs towards their Government. While most Liberal Democrat and Conservative MEPs voted to protect the British position, 18 Labour Members voted for scrapping the opt-out, putting loyalty to the Socialist group in the European Parliament above fealty to the party on whose list they were elected. Despite the Government’s repeated pledge to retain the opt-out so hard won in 1993, Labour MEPs have voted against it at every stage of the process. Let us not forget the guilty in this crime against common sense. Led by Stephen Hughes, they include Gary Titley, Claude Moraes, Peter Skinner, Michael Cashman, Richard Corbett, Neena Gill and Glenys Kinnock. These names are not generally known, apart from the last. Yet they should be. British taxpayers might do well to start asking what exactly they are getting in return for paying their more than generous salaries.

The proposals will go back to the European Commission and be subject to a vote in the Council of Ministers. Britain hopes to form a blocking minority in the Council with allies such as Poland. But there should be no need. With China and India on the rise, this is the wrong time to pander to the prejudices of old Europe. Mr Blair should scrap not the opt-out but some of his wayward MEPs.