Wreckers or Builders?: A History of Labour Members of the European Parliament 1979-1999 by Anita Pollack
This is the first history of Labour Members of the European Parliament, described in the foreword by Neil Kinnock as 'a well-researched record - warts and all - of the period when Labour in the European Parliament grew from 17 to 62 Members and Labour's policy on the EU changed from withdrawal to committed support for membership and reforms'. The author provides a detailed chronological account of the era, with balanced coverage of every MEP and all the principal issues of the day. The emphasis is primarily on the political though with passages in which the author describes the experience of life for the MEPs and assistants in the often strange and difficult environments of Strasbourg and Brussels. The author interviewed all surviving MEPs in the production of the volume, which also draws extensively on records of the British Labour Group and European Parliamentary Labour Party and parliamentary records.