IT already feels like a long time since the Sunday evening at the end of May when Paul Brannen and myself were elected as two of the three Members of the European Parliament for the North-East, and given the incredible honour of representing our home region.

Throughout the campaign, we told voters that we were committed to being local MEPs, visible and accessible across the region and actively fighting for the North-East in the parliament.

Getting off the TGV train in Strasbourg on Sunday evening, ready to take my seat for the first time, the German architecture and French language of my surroundings immediately struck home. This city symbolises European co-operation – as the European Union is based on the fundamental principle that European countries should avoid war and conflict because of their economic interdependence.

For my 96-year-old gran’s generation, this is a symbolism which has significant importance.

My generation sometimes forgets that we resolve our differences with our nearest neighbours today over the negotiating table rather than on the battlefield.

But boy, this first week has shown the challenges of finding compromises and agreements across 751 MEPs from 28 countries with 24 languages!

After all the political wrangling, we have emerged as the Labour spokespeople on a number of committees. Paul will be responsible for agriculture and rural development in this five year parliament, while I will be representing Labour in the International Trade committee. In addition, we have responsibility for environmental and industrial policy. These are all key political areas for the North-East.

Sitting in the plenary chamber for the first time, listening to the debates, one word in every language was repeated to death: “reform”.

Every political party has its own definition of what reform looks like and it is these competing visions of how Europeans can work together that has taken centre stage this week.

Launching the six month Italian presidency on Wednesday, Matteo Renzi – Italy’s young and charismatic socialist Prime Minister – spoke of the need for European politicians to work together for action on job creation, especially for young people, to defend human rights globally and act to halt the tragic loss of life in the Mediterranean as a result of the desperate attempts by refugees to reach Europe’s shores.

It was a progressive vision of reform which contrasted dramatically with the Tories’ call for an internal market without social protections, and with the grandstanding isolationism of Ukip.

LABOUR is committed to changing the EU constructively to ensure that all attention is focused on issues where we are stronger working together: managing globalisation and ensuring that the market has fair rules for workers, consumers and businesses; tackling climate change and the needed investment in energy and transport infrastructures; addressing the needs of our ageing societies, amongst other challenges.

Just this week, one practical example of this cooperation was the slashing of mobile phone data roaming charges.

It was my mam who showed me the practical purpose of the EU for our communities in the North-East. When I was 13 she led a local campaign group – Stop Toxic Waste Incinerators in Cleveland (STINC) – fighting proposals for three incinerators because she was worried about the possibility of air pollution. Two of the incinerators would have been on the north banks of the Tees.

Teesside was being advertised by the government in international chemical journals as a good place to bring toxic waste to incinerate because environmental protection was poorly implemented and “the locals were used to air pollution”.

Despite being ridiculed as a “housewife from Middlesbrough” by the lawyers for the multinationals involved, she researched in public libraries and found adequate evidence to win the public inquiry. She showed that the government had violated European law, which, with the support of our local MEP David Bowe, led to EU action against the UK government and better environmental protection.

This was the first time that I knew that we were part of the EU, and that we could use European rules to defend people from the power of big vested interests.

Before travelling home, I took time to consider what my mother would think of the journey that has brought me from Middlesbrough to Strasbourg. She would certainly have been fascinated by the political machinations but she would always have kept my feet on the ground, never allowing me to forget who I’m in this parliament to represent.

  • The third North-East MEP is Jonathan Arnott, of Ukip