“If we can’t build walls around Europe to keep work here - it is neither desirable nor practical - we can insist that European companies behave in better ways. I want to see a strengthening of the provisions on information and consultation and European Works Councils to ensure that companies cannot just up and go and leave a wreckage among the communities and workforce.

They should be required to produce a social plan in consultation with the union and local labour market authority; they should pay back any grants they have received to locate in the first place; they should adopt a code of corporate governance to be followed wherever in the world they decide to go. That code should include ILO standards, and, better than those, good European practice - and dealing with unions should be at its heart. It is no longer good enough for companies to say they should just follow local laws.

If the principle of “country of origin” is good enough for the Services Directive, it is good enough on “délocalisation”.