| The Bruges Group
HOW MUCH DOES
THE EU COST BRITAIN? 2007
Reported in the
Telegraph, Daily Mail and The Sun
Gordon Brown's Government is handing-over
billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to the EU.
The combined direct and
indirect costs of EU membership costs every man, women and child in Britain
over £1,000 per year.
As a result of the Government's surrender of the UK's rebate, and
the mounting costs of pointless EU regulation, this figure is set to rise even
further.
Since Britain joined the ‘European Economic Community´
in 1973, Parliamentarians have time and again called for a cost-benefit
analysis to prove or disprove the benefits of membership; successive
Conservative and Labour governments have consistently refused on the grounds
that the benefits are ‘self-evident´.
Set out in the latest Bruges Group research by Gerard Batten MEP
the full costs to Britain have now been calculated.
The facts:
Over-regulation costs Britain at least £26
billion per annum
The Common Agricultural Policy costs Britain at least £15.6
billion a year
Since 1973 the UK has made contributions to the EC budget of
almost £213.6 billion gross or £66.3 billion net, by 2013 this
figure will have increased to £299.8 billion gross, or £102.2
billion net
Britain's accumulated trade deficit with the other EU member
states since we joined has risen to £359.5 billion
This year membership of the European Union will cost Britain
£60.1 billion gross, or £50.6 billion net
That is the equivalent for every man, women and child in Britain
of over £1,000 per year gross or £843 net
Gerard Batten, UKIP MEP and author of the paper, challenges the
Government; "If the Government believes that membership of the EU is beneficial
to Britain and that we should remain a member, then let it commission an
independent and impartial cost/benefit analysis so that the supposed benefits
can be proved and the findings openly debated.
"If Gordon Brown thinks that the UK should be signed-up to the
revived EU Constitution, then he should be open with the British people and
present us with the full costs of EU membership. It costs Britain more and more
every year and we would be better off out." |
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You now have an opportunity to ensure that Britain will remain a
sovereign and independent nation that will be ruled by our own parliament at
Westminster.
At the June 2004 European Elections, the UK Independence Party
expects to deliver a major ballot box shock to the political establishment.
Your vote and that of your friends will be crucially important for the survival
of an ‘Independent Britain.
Some of the questions commonly asked: Q
Why did we join the EU? A The UK joined what was the ‘Common Market’
in 1973, this was ratified by a referendum on continued membership in 1975 -
the only time the public has ever been asked. The Common Market has since
evolved into a virtual superstate, with its own constitution, anthem, army,
police force and parliament.
Q Weren’t we told about all this then?
A No, we weren’t. Official documents show that although both Tory and
Labour governments in the 70s were aware of what was intended, they did not
tell the people. What we have now is a far cry from the government’s
assertion in the 1975 campaign that: “There was a threat to employment in
Britain from the movement in the Common Market towards an Economic &
Monetary Union. This could have forced us to accept fixed exchange rates for
the pound, restricting industrial growth and putting jobs at risk. This threat
has been removed.”
Did you know 70% of our laws are made in Brussels
by bureaucrats meeting in secret? |
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Successive governments of all political persuasions have lost
control of crime.
Just consider some of the figures: According to the UK
government’s own statistics, the number of indictable offences per
thousand of the population was 2.4 in 1900, rising to 9.7 in 1954. Since then
it has risen rapidly, and now stands at nearly ten times the 1954 figure.
Government figures also show that the prison population, which hovered around
10,000 from 1918 through the Great Depression until the mid 1940s, began to
rise at the end of the war and now exceeds 70,000.
In 1963 there were 148
cases of murder in England and Wales. In October 2002, the Sunday Times
reported that in the first eight months of 2002, there were 135 murders in the
Metropolitan police area alone.
According to The Institute for the Study of
Civil Society (Civitas), there were 5.8 million recorded crimes in 2002,
compared to 1.7 million in 1972. Civitas also reports that the number of
robberies in London during the first two months of 2003 was 7,300 just 300
short of the total for the whole of 1980. They also point out that whereas in
1972 there were 8,900 robberies in the whole of England and Wales, in 2001-02
there were 6,500 in one London borough alone.
When Tony Blair was seeking
election, he used the slogan: “Tough on Crime, tough on the causes of
crime’: What he deliberately failed to mention was that the cause of crime
is criminals. Not unemployment. Not poverty. Not social injustice. For all
three of these were present during the 20s and 30s, when crime levels were at
record lows. It is criminals that cause crime. In this one area of domestic
policy alone, the main political parties have utterly failed the people.
A
UKIP government will do whatever is necessary to reduce crime and criminality
to the levels of the 1950s. |
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With the fourth largest economy in the world the UK is a very
attractive destination for people seeking a better life.
The trouble is the
UK is already full up. The average population density of England is twice that
of Germany, four times that of France, and twelve times that of the United
States. We are bursting at the seams, with our roads and railways seizing up,
our town centres near gridlock, and our social services close to breakdown. Our
doctors’ surgeries cannot cope and hospital waiting lists are growing.
In 2002 the government allowed another two hundred thousand people into the
country, plus several thousand asylum seekers, many of whom are simply economic
migrants living in our country illegally. This adds considerably to our
problems, increasing social tensions and depriving poor third world countries
of their brightest and best. We cannot sustain this increase which compares
with a city the size of Cambridge coming into Britain every six months, or two
million people over the next ten years.
Outside the EU we will regain
control of our own borders. We will maintain the honourable British tradition
of offering political asylum for genuine refugees. This means that: No requests
for asylum will be entertained from refugees for whom the UK is not the first
safe port of call. No requests for asylum will be entertained from citizens of
other multiparty democracies, since these will be deemed, like the UK, to be
politically tolerant of varying points of view. No requests for asylum will be
considered from citizens of countries currently hosting international
peacekeepers from the UN, the UK, or from other countries. Part of the job of
such forces is to protect people from persecution in their own countries. No
more ‘economic’ immigration will be entertained except in very
exceptional circumstances.
If we cannot run our own country with sixty
million people, then when will we ever be able to run it?
At the Border: A
UKIP government would give UK port, airport, and other authorities whatever
resources it takes to check everyone at the point of entry into the country.
Immigrants claiming asylum at point of entry will be held in humane but secure
accommodation, and their case processed within a fortnight. No asylum claims
will be countenanced if submitted later, or away from the point of entry. At
the end of the two week period successful asylum seekers will be released into
the community and given whatever help is deemed appropriate. Unsuccessful
applicants will be returned to their countries of origin.
These UKIP
policies are firm but fair. They replace existing policies, the lax enforcement
of which serve only to reward criminality and to punish the law-abiding,
encouraging criminal gangs who prey on desperate people. In 2004, Mr. Blair has
irresponsibly agreed to open our borders to all citizens of the 10 new
countries joining the EU, unlike most other member states who are phasing in
this process over 7 years. Of all the British MEPs only UKIP MEPs voted against
EU enlargement. |
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Governments no longer seek to serve the people. They now view the
voters as production units in a company called Great Britain PLC and as such
they expect us to do what they as directors want. They never now talk of
freedom, and they have forgotten what democracy means:
They take a
steadily increasing proportion of our money in taxes. They are now attacking
our basic legal rights such as Habeas Corpus, the Double jeopardy rule, and
Trial by jury. With identity cards, CCTV, and DNA testing government agencies
will soon be able to keep tabs on everybody.
They impose ever increasing
reams of legislation on companies and businesses. They impose ever more tightly
defined targets and objectives on our schools and hospitals. They use unelected
advisers to apply ‘spin’ to whatever they tell us, because they
believe we cannot be trusted with the truth.
A UKIP Government would aim
for a steady long-term reduction in the proportion of our money taken in taxes.
Reinforce our long established legal rights by removing the UK from the
jurisdiction of the European courts. Establish the general principle that new
technology must never be used for the routine observation of members of the
public who are not under suspicion of having committed some crime. Hack away
all legislation on companies and other corporate bodies, which has its origin
in Directives from the European Union.
Massively reduce the number of
targets imposed on schools and hospitals, and make sure that the remaining ones
are realistic.
Remove unelected advisers from ministerial offices.
Elected politicians together with professional civil servants should have
enough talent between them to run the country.
UKIP also believes that
there is now considerable scope for voters to decide on many of the issues
themselves, as in Switzerland and in many states of the USA. As a first step
towards this form of Direct Democracy. UKIP would pass legislation allowing for
‘Popular Referendums’ at all levels of local government on issues of
concern to local residents when the required number of signatures has been
collected on a petition. |
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The right to freedom of speech means exactly that - the freedom to
say what you like. Few freedoms are unlimited though, and this particular right
carries with it responsibilities to other people, notably the responsibility
not to grievously offend. That said however this responsibility has in recent
times become codified into a bizarre and extreme set of beliefs and behaviours
by those in authority, which has now earned the title of ‘Political
Correctness’.
An example from the last European elections makes the
point:- In june 1999, 78 year old George Staunton from Toxteth, Liverpool was
arrested and charged with the crime of ‘Racially Aggravated Criminal
Damage’, after putting up UKIP posters on a wall, and writing alongside
“Don’t forget the 1945 war’ and “Free speech for
England’: As reported in the Daily Telegraph of July 10th, Mr Staunton,
who served in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, feels that his
country has let him down: “I don’t see the problem. My slogans are
not hurting anyone and they’re not racist. I just believe in free speech
and the right for the UK to rule itself. With all the crime in this area, I
couldn’t believe they nicked me for writing on a building that’s
being pulled down anyway. They arrested me on June 9th - election day. I
didn’t even get the chance to vote because they banged me up for
supporting democracy.” Mr Staunton added “I’m no racist, but I
am prepared to have a discussion about how things like immigration affect our
country. I went to a Christian school where they were not scared to talk about
the Empire and colonies and other races. You can’t say anything now
because people will point their finger and cry
‘harassment’.”
George Staunton’s example is just one of
many, and it is repeated in numerous other areas of life. TV programmes, book
publishers, university courses and lecturers, and many other people and
institutions are now all subject to the authoritarian strictures of Political
Correctness. All of which represents a retreat into a climate of mediaeval
heresy and taboo.
A UKIP administration would restructure the law to ensure
that free speech once again came to mean just that. There is no one
‘correct’ view on immigration. the European Union, devolution,
multiculturalism, education, women’s rights, fox hunting, or anything
else.
UKIP believes that the British people are perfectly capable of using
their traditional Freedom of Speech responsibly - just as they always have
done. |