How the EU affects you
In this section of the Website, we will be showing you just how our daily lives are affected by the EU. Over the coming weeks in the run-up to the Parliamentary election in June, we will be producing a series of articles on specific areas from leisure boating to refuse collection to abbatoirs where membership of the EU is affecting sections of the community for the worse. We will also be producing more general articles about the EU, including the effect of the Lisbon Treaty.
To start with, here are a few big areas where the EU already impacts us
1) It costs us a lot. No government has ever produced an official study of the cost benefit to Britain of EU membership. The reason is simple – they know we are worse off by being in the EU. The best study so far has been published by the Bruges Group, and comes up with a net figure of over £55 billion per year – money that could be better used at home, particularly in these difficult economic times. The figure includes net payments to the EU, the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy and the cost of unnecessary over-regulation. The study does not claim this figure is accurate down to the last penny, but challenges anyone who thinks it is wrong to come up with a more accurate figure. So far, no-one has risen to the challenge! This figure may work out as only approximately £1,000 per year per head of population, but for a family burdened with a crippling mortgage, this amount could be the difference between them keeping their house and having it repossessed. MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN UNION IS AN EXPENSE BRITAIN CANNOT AFFORD
2) The Common Agricultural Policy. This is bad for Britain is several ways. Firstly, it costs us over £15 billion per year - in other words, an extra £20 per week for the average family. Secondly, it is very wasteful. In the past it has encouraged overproduction (butter mountains, wine lakes) while being unable to adapt when conditions changed from food surplus to food shortage. It has also been abused, with all manner of non-farmers receiving grants from the CAP funds, including railway companies and horse riding clubs. Also, scrutiny of farmers has been minimal, with the farmer who received a grant for non-existent olive trees being far from unique.
3) The Common Fisheries Policy. It has been an environmental catastrophe for our once-rich fishing grounds, such as the North Sea. A desire to preserve fish stocks was a key factor in Norway and Iceland keeping out of the EU, and their fish stocks are in much better shape than those in British waters.
4) Immigration. Free movement of people as well as goods and services is a fundamental human right as far as the EU is concerned. (To see this spelt out by the EU, see http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/freetravel/fsj_freetravel_intro_en.htm) Although our government continues to portray immigration as a good thing, it is putting great strain on our health and education services, not to mention additional spending to translate documents into extra languages and is still causing downward pressure on wages to the detriment of British skilled workers, as the Lindsey Oil Refinery dispute showed recently. We were told that only 15,000 workers from Eastern Europe would come to Britain when the 2004 enlargement took place. This was a figure plucked out of the air by a German Think Tank. Many of us believed at the time that this figure was wildly inaccurate. Sadly, we have been proved right. Turkish membership of the EU is a potentially explosive issue, but Turkey has a larger population than Poland, and is poorer. The British government supports Turkish membership, as does the Conservative Party leadership. In immigration terms, it would be a disaster.
5) We are a square peg in a round hole. We do things differently, and the British way suits us best. Even under Europhile New Labour, Britain has asked for more derogation from EU legislation than any other nation, but we still are constrained by EU legislation in many areas that do not suit us. Nevertheless, we are not part of Schengen - i.e. we want to keep border controls. We have kept the Pound. We have different system of measurements. We drive on the opposite side of the road. Our trains are smaller than those on the continent. Historically, we have traded far more with the rest of the world and far less with Continental Europe. Our legal system (Common Law) has very different roots from the "top-down" Napoleonic system. Much of this is due to our long history as an independent democratic nation. It is easy to forget how young many of the EU states are as independent nations, and how even within many of our lifetimes a significant number of them were ruled by totalitarian régimes.
Our history explains why Britain is the most Eurosceptic of all 27 member states and why we have the most vigorous withdrawalist movement. For the former communist bloc, EU membership is a status symbol - a sign that they have left behind their communist past. For Italy and Belgium, their own domestic politicians are so uninspiring that EU legislation is seen as an improvement. For France, EU membership means that they are less likely to be invaded by Germany again. By contrast Britain has gained nothing - a Free Trade agreement such as that between the EU and Switzerland would be far better for us. Our approach to incorporating European legislation into UK law has caused problems because we tend to be more rigid than other countries in our interpretation - so called "Gold plating."
The fact is, in submitting to the primacy of European law, we have exchanged something that works well for Britain for something that does not suit us.