10 REASONS WHY BRITAIN SHOULD
LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION
1. To end the drain on the country’s finances
The government put
the net ‘contribution’ cost of our EU membership in
1999 at £8.5 billion (equal to almost 4p of income tax).
Last year our net contribution was £4.5 million. More HERE
Indirect costs - complying with regulations,
loss of earnings from farming, fishing, etc., raise the overall
cost still further.
Withdrawal from the EU would yield Britain
a £billion Independence Dividend.
2. So that we can restore the full
authority of Westminster, where the MPs we elect defend our interests,
rather than accept rule from Brussels by bureaucrats we neither
vote in nor have power to dismiss.
Four out of five of our laws now come direct from the
EU. Because EU officials and Commissioners are specifically required
NOT to take account of the interests of their own country, such
legislation may disregard Britain’s national interest!
Creating Regional Assemblies for each of
Britain’s Euro-Regions will cause a massive expansion in
bureaucracy and administration costs and drive further wedges
between Westminster, County & District Councils and the voters.
3. So that we can pursue ‘British’
policies for agriculture and fishing, based on optimal self sufficiency
and the maximisation of our natural resources.
EU ‘Common’ Policies for fishing & farming
are expensive, wasteful, cruel, immoral as well as harmful to
the environment and the developing world. British farmers are
weighed down by bureaucracy and form filling and constrained by
inappropriate quotas. Their ‘green pound’ incomes
are determined by the value of sterling on the world’s foreign
exchanges – even if they never export!
4. The EU Single Market, with its
fanciful ‘level playing field’ and a mass of costly
regulations, sets member state against member state - whilst preventing
each from capitalising on its own individual strengths.
The City of London will be (deliberately) weakened by
‘financial services’ legislation carried by the votes
of EU countries with no comparable financial sectors of their
own. Similarly, our position - unique within the EU - as a world
leader in the art & antiques trades, is threatened by ‘harmonised’
VAT.
5. Staying in the EU will mean eventually
having to join the euro. As a result, control of the economy will
pass to the European Central Bank, which is required to treat
the entire EU area as one economy.
Although exporters complain about the “strong”
pound (they really mean the weak euro), the slightest weakening
of sterling makes everyone nervous about inflation.
When EU ‘harmonisation’ has
raised costs and taxes here to the levels of those in France and
Germany, what businesses will come and set up - or remain - here?
6. The EU is yesterday’s idea.
Unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it is
not a free trade zone but a protectionist Customs union.
Even small, non-EU countries trade with the EU on similar
terms to those of Britain – but without the cost and loss
of self-government EU membership entails. EU regulations impose
extra costs on every business in the country – including
the 90% that never export and those that export only to non-EU
markets.
Ongoing EU trade disputes with America,
and Brussels’ reluctance to accept WTO rulings that don’t
go in its favour, harm British exporters.
7. The EU is dominated by France
and Germany. For forty years, their heads of government have been
meeting twice yearly to set their common agenda.
EU enlargement will reduce Britain’s voting rights
from the present 15% to less than 10%. It is dangerous and naïve
to think we have any real influence – let alone be able
to defend our vital interests against France’s unbridled
hostility to America and the Anglo-Saxon ‘model’.
8. The EU will oblige Britain to
abandon the centuries old democratic and legal systems that have
been embraced by countries throughout the world.
Our legal system will be turned upside down as we go
over to the Napoleonic code system: we will be deemed guilty until
proved innocent, liable to virtually unlimited detention without
charge (in the absence of habeas corpus) and lose the right to
trial by jury. The banning of imperial measures is designed to
deny British companies any ‘natural’ advantage when
quoting for American contracts.
9. In order to retain full control
over our borders and armed forces.
Jurisdiction over who may enter and remain in Britain
must be the sole preserve of our Westminster parliament.
Britain’s armed services are for defending
Britain’s interests, not for allowing the French to indulge
their long-standing obstructive hostility to America and Nato.
10. So that we do not bind and betray
future generations.
Being in the EU means that
all our national resources - gold reserves, North Sea Gas &
Oil, fish stocks – will have to be placed at the disposal
of the EU. The debts of Continental pension funds will become
the debts of our children - who may not even be assured pensions
of their own. The ‘acquis communautaire’ process ensures
that EU legislation is unlikely ever to be repealed or amended.
Based on Source:
The UK Independence Party, Triumph House, 189 Regent Street, London,
W1B 4JX. Tel. 0207424 4559
More
Reasons for the UK to Withdraw
