Careless legislation costs jobs
One interesting, and not often discussed, side effect of the watering down of employees rights is that far from helping create jobs in the UK, it can actually end up costing them.
Back in the fag end of the Major administration, the company next door to my partner's workplace was in some difficulty. In fact, they had factories in various places around Europe, and the one in Hoddesdon wasn't the worst performing.
But, thanks to the fact that we weren't signed up to the Social Charter here, and the UK workers had fewer rights, it was the site that got closed, because it was simply easier to ditch the British workers than those elsewhere in the EU.
Now, perhaps this will only happen in the margins, where the savings from easier disposal of UK staff can outweigh slightly worse figures from another site elsewhere, but it certainly does happen.
Remove too much protection from workers and yes, you might make a few companies decide they'll set up here - but largely because they know they can just close down again really quickly. You run a risk not of creating real jobs, but of engineering a situation where the UK is Europe's go-to place for easily disposable temporary labour.
That might look good for the balance sheets, but it's not going to be much fun for the people actually doing the work.