^"What did the EU ever do for us?
Not much, apart from: providing 57% of our trade;^
Silly statement. 45% of our trade is with the EU and declining. Some of that ;trade' is actually trade with the rest of the world but counted as EU trade because it passes through Rotterdam container port. The EU trades more with us than we do with them so is more dependant on us than we are on them.
^structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline;%
We give the EU £55 million a day and the EU deems whether it will give grants to support these areas. How about we cut out the EU middleman and use some of this £55m a day to support these areas directly? Oh, I forgot, the EU wouldn't be able to pin their little blue 'provided by the EU badge to it'.
clean beaches and rivers;
So we couldn't do this without the EU?
cleaner air;
We've been improving our own air quality since the days of smog-filled London. We could manage that without the EU. Clean Air Act.
lead free petrol;
We don't need the EU to dictate lead free petrol. We could legislate that for ourselves. However we do have German cars pumping out pollution in excess of the EU's emissions levels because they cheated the EU's own emission rules.
restrictions on landfill dumping;
Tell that to a Bulgarian local authority that dumps its waste in ravines.
a recycling culture;
Nonsense. I was recycling aluminium milk bottle tops and Corona bottles when I was at school. Have you never seen an old-fashioned 1970's Blue Peter Christmas Appeal?
cheaper mobile charges;
Competition between mobile companies is possible without EU legislation.
cheaper air travel;
Causing more air pollution, so negating the claim the EU has brought us cleaner air. Again, we did not need the EU to legislate on this.
improved consumer protection and food labelling;
Anyone who has studied contract or consumer law knows that these have been improving long before the EU felt it had to legislate.
a ban on growth hormones and other harmful food additives;
Food Standards have been improving since Elizabethan times. It did not require EU legislation.
better product safety;
We had product safety standards long before the EU. We had Kite marls and international standards. The TTIP legislation will now DECREASE product safety as pre TTIP anything that is manufactured has to meet proven safety standards, whereas post-TTIP, a product can be made without adhering to safety standards and it is for the consumer to prove it is NOT safe.
single market competition bringing quality improvements and better industrial performance;
The Single Market is the provided by the European Economic Area, not the European Union. It consists of markets in countries that are not full members of the EU. Does 'better industrial performance' include the steel production that has ceased in the UK because EU rules prevent the Government from protecting our domestic steel industry? Does it include the £80million that the EU paid Ford to relocate from its Southampton factory to a new factory in Turkey. Or the closure of the Landrover plant because it couldn't meet EU emissions standards - that German cars can also not meet, but cheat the consumer into thinking they do?
break up of monopolies;
No. Monopolies and mergers were investigated and prevented if against public interest by UK Govt long before we joined the EU. By the way, this EU legislation forced the break up of the Royal Mail and the closure of many rural Post Offices. I don't see that as a benefit of being in the UK.
Europe-wide patent and copyright protection;
Hardly a great benefit. Inventors and writers have been registering patents worldwide for years before the EU.
no paperwork or customs for exports throughout the single market;
Wrong There is a lot of paperwork. Believe me, I've had to raise it.
price transparency and removal of commission on currency exchanges across the eurozone;
Why do we need an EU to do that? Market forces prevail.
freedom to travel, live and work across Europe;
We've always had that. Ask Lord Byron, Gerald Durrell, Graham Green, Gracie Fields. They lived in Europe long before the EU was invented, And 'EUROPE is a continent. EUROPE is not the EU.
funded opportunities for young people to undertake study or work placements abroad;
If we were not paying £55million a day to the EU I expect we could fund a moreo pportunities for our own British students, here or abroad. British students have also studied at European Universities, long before the EU.
access to European health services;
Wrong. Access to basic health services within those countries that have a reciprocal agreement with us. You try strolling into a Swiss clinic and claiming access to 'European Health services'. The 'free' health services you obtain in other EU countries are actually funded by the UK Government under reciprocal agreements. These agrreements work both ways. Any of the 400,00 million EU citizens can use our NHS. The problem is that we don't recoup the cost from their Governements. We cannot continue to have a free NHS open to 400,00 million EU citizens. NHS or EU- your choice.
labour protection and enhanced social welfare;
Learn some British history We led the world in social welfare. Our welfare system is open to 400,00 million EU citizens. It cannot continue to provide thousands of pounds each year in in-work benefits to migrants who earn the minimum wage. You chose - controlled EU immigration that leads to the collapse of our welfare state or the EU?
smoke-free workplaces;
We could have legislated for that ourselves. we have led the world in health and safety at work standards for centuries.
equal pay legislation;
The Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 was a landmark labour-relations dispute in the United Kingdom. It was a trigger cause of the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970
holiday entitlement;
Sorry - we had holiday entitlement long before we joined the EU
the right not to work more than a 48-hour week without overtime;
But junior doctors keep telling us they work 90 hours a week? How can that be?
strongest wildlife protection in the world;
They shoot bears in the Pyrenees. They shoot down migrating birds in Southern Europe. Peter Scott, UK Govt legislation and the WWF was protecting wildlife long before the EU.
improved animal welfare in food production;
Bull fighting is permitted. They throw donkeys off towers in Spain. Have you never seen a feral cat or dog colony in an EU country - they are prolific. Live exports are still permitted. Halal slaughter is permitted. The EU cannot make that claim.
EU-funded research and industrial collaboration;
Out of the £55million we give them each day and rebadged as EU funding. We do have our own Resaerch Councils in the UK. We have had more Nobel Prize wimmers than any country in the World and most of them before joining the EU.
EU representation in international forums;
Yes, it means that we must leave our seat on the World Trade Organisation empty while we are in the EU, so we can't make lucrative trade deals with other countries, because the EU prevents us from doing so. We have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and so does France. Do you honestly think the EU will let us both keep our seats? No. So our influence in the world will reduce. Tell me why Britain cannot represent British interests at international forums? Briatain was a founder member of NATO, of the UN. It belongs to thousands of international organisations, EFTA, EEA, WHO, IMO, Red Cross etc and has represented itself quite successfully for decades without needing the EU to do it for us. Ask yourself - whose interests is the EU representing, ours of just 1/28 of ours as it represents all members EU states?
bloc EEA negotiation at the WTO;
Preventing us from occupying our seat on the WTO and preventing us making our own trade deals with the rest of the world. It took the EU 7 years to negotiate one trade deal. It took Iceland a matter of months to strike a trade deal with China. we want to be like Iceland. Iceland gets things done. The EU prevents us from trading freely.
EU diplomatic efforts to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty;
Why do we need EU involvement? We are members of NATO and the IAEA. We can represent ourselves . The EU is supposedly not a country althout it does have legal entity.
European arrest warrant;
We had extradition treaties long before the EU. The European arrest Warrant brought to an end the centuries old right of habeas corpus - imprisonment without trial as any British person van now be sent abroad to any EU country that may have a legal system that is not as fair as our own. We saw a use of the EU Arrest Warrant when the parents of the child with a brain tumour who took him to Spain were imprisoned for doing so.
I do not see the European Arrest Warrant as anything to be proud of. It is a diminution of our rights as British people
cross border policing to combat human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling; counter terrorism intelligence;
Interpol. Global, not just European. we had trans-global cooperation on policing long before the EU.
European civil and military co-operation in post-conflict zones in Europe and Africa;
When I see a 'trading organisation' making military claims - I worry. We have NATO for this. We have our own Armed Forces. we have the UN. This is not the role of a trading organisation.
support for democracy and human rights across Europe and beyond;
Nothing new. we've been doing this for centuries before the EU. Does this 'democracy' include the overthrow of the Greek and Italian leaderships that the EU successfully achieved.? Does it include the Troika that dictate rules to the very cradle of democracy - Greece? I don't think the EU has anything to boast about in terms of 'democracy or human rights'.
investment across Europe contributing to better living standards and educational, social and cultural capital.
That has been the role of domestic governments since they existed. They did not need the EU to do it.
All of this is nothing compared with its greatest achievements: the EU has for 60 years been the foundation of peace between European neighbours after centuries of bloodshed.
Lies lies lies. The UN and NATO have provided peace in Europe - not the EU. You are conveniently forgetting the Bosnian and Kosovan wars when the EU was spectacularly useless and it required the American and NATO to sort out the problem.
The EU is an empire and like all empires it must expand. It is trying to expand eastwards into former Communist countries of the USSR. A look at the EU accounts will show it has given billion of Euros to Ukraine to groom that country into wanted EU membership. When the Ukrainian Govt refused to apply it was overthrown by the people who have been enticed by the EU. Russia will never permit Ukraine to join the EU. It would be like expecting us to keep quiet if Russia took over Scotland. So the EU interference in Ukraine is making that region unstable and rather than providing peace the EU could start a war with Russia.
It furthermore assisted the extraordinary political, social and economic transformation of 13 former dictatorships, now EU members, since 1980.
Singlehandly, on a wet Wednesday afternoon, without the aid of a tightrope - that's how silly this claim is. Pure, unadultered nonsense that is taking credit for decades of bi and multi-lateral diplomatic efforts that have nothing to do with the EU.
Now the union faces major challenges brought on by neoliberal economic globalisation, and worsened by its own systemic weaknesses. It is taking measures to overcome these.
It is bringing forth its own collapse as it tries to create a political union of 28 separate countries with different domestic agendas and values and ineterest. It is bringing about its own aollapse through the stupidity of thinking it could bind a disperate set of countries with different financial systems into one single currency, something that history tells us has always failed without political union. It has created beggar nations and enslaved their populations in debt for future generations. It is soley responsible for the financial tragedy that is unfolding within poorer EU countries.
We in the UK should reflect on whether our net contribution of £7bn out of total government expenditure of £695bn is good value.
Yes we should, and no it's not. It's much more than that anyway when you add in the costs of actually implementing the mountain of new legislation it send sus each year.
We must play a full part in enabling the union to be a force for good in a multi-polar global future
The union cannot be a force for good. The union is a hollow, vacuous confidence trick to take away the power of the citizens of Europe by stealth and to ensure they live under the diktat. of the EU. as Gorbachev said, he could never understand the countries that escaped the former USSR submitting themselves to a new captivity by the EU masters. it is an undemocratic, unaccountable and dangerous organisation that enriches its elite at the cost of the ordinary person.
Reading that list of EU 'gains' just serves to show that
- It's tentacles stretch everywhere. When people accuse you of blaming the EU for everything - you actually have good cause to do so
- Our role in the world is diminished, not enriched by our membership
- The EU is not Europe. Europe is a continent containing many sovereign states, some of which are under EU control.
We have a simple choice - we stay in the EU and continue to allow uncontrolled immigration from the EU into Britain, to the point at which it overburdens our schools and hospitals and housing stock and we open our welfare and health systems to the 400,000 EU citizens who have a right to use them or we leave and control who is allowed to come here so that we welcome those who have the skills to benefit this country and we retain our NHS and welfare state. We cannot do that in the EU.