Bob Crow is correct to label the European Union as a free-market straightjacket increasing misery for the continent's majority (Exit Europe from the left, 18 May), but he is mistaken to imagine we can improve matters by leaving. Should we do so we will then be out in the cold and easily picked off by big business and finance demanding lower wages in order for the UK to receive investment or prevent relocation.
Instead, the answer has to be to align the public anger about austerity and businesses anxiety about declining effective demand with an alternative end goal for the EU. Its present emphasis on the free movement of goods, money and people is rarely recognised as being the cause of the present crisis. It allowed, for example, German banks to lend to Greeks to import German cars they couldn't afford – and then the resulting national debts were dealt with by austerity. Meanwhile, the increasing migration of EU citizens caused by the inability of countries to control their borders under the single market is increasing tensions across the continent.
It's time that trade unionists, activists and lateral-thinking politicians developed cooperative polices to protect and rebuild Europe's local economies. Such "progressive protectionism" will have two huge advantages. Its rejection of the open market and the fantasy of ever-growing export-led growth will get us out from under the illogical fantasy that everyone can export their way out of economic trouble, while ridding us of the need for Europe's last colonial delusion – that we can out-compete the low-wage economies of China and the rest of Asia.
Most importantly from Bob Crow and other trade unionists' point of view, it will also rob international business of its ability to continue forcing a lower wage economy on the EU by rendering impotent their threats to relocate, since leaving Europe would mean them facing punishing barriers to its huge market.
Colin Hines
Author, Progressive Protectionism (forthcoming)
• The notion expressed by your correspondents (Letters, 17 May) that sweatshop workers could be helped by a voluntary fair trade premium from western consumers is ill-advised. The responsibility for workers' abysmal conditions lies predominantly with multinational retail chains who use their purchasing power to drive down the price they pay for the garments produced. Despite the crocodile tears of Primark executives after the factory collapse in Dhaka, these enterprises are completely amoral and the only reason for their existence is to maximise revenue for shareholders.
Until such a time as the concept of limited liability is abolished and the profit motive is diluted, there will be little change in corporate behaviour. Consequently, transnational companies should be made liable for what happens at the end of their supply chains. However, at a time when the government is hell-bent on removing protection for domestic workers, never mind those toiling down the supply chain, the chances of such radical changes even being considered are slim. Nevertheless, that should not stop us taking action to support trade union colleagues in the south and campaigning to highlight the appalling behaviour of corporations in the north with a view to affecting their bottom line which, for them, is the only thing that matters.
Bert Schouwenburg
International Officer, GMB
• We are disturbed that David Cameron, co-chairing the UN high level panel on post-2015 development, is blocking efforts to focus on inequality (Report, May 15). Economic research shows that smaller income differences lead to more sustained economic growth and catalyse disproportionately large reductions in poverty. We have a unique opportunity to get inequality rooted in the way we "do" development – how we talk about it and measure it. That's why we, with 90 academics, economists and development experts, asked the high level panel to put strategies to reduce inequality at the heart of the new framework (full text and signatories at: http://tinyurl.com/bsdqpm2. Most key actors on the development stage now understand the evidence. Why does Cameron think he knows better? In 2009 he said: "We all know, in our hearts, that as long as there is deep poverty living systematically side by side with great riches, we all remain the poorer for it". We challenge him to match words with action.
Professor Kate Pickett
Emeritus professor Richard Wilkinson
Equality Trust
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