In the main leader of the Daily Mail on
9th December 2000 Andrew Alexander argued why he believes it is
inevitable that Britain will withdraw from the EU
Britain will one day leave the EU. The timing
may be hard to predict, but not the inevitability of our eventual
departure. The Nice summit is merely serving to underline our
incompatibility with the structure and the aims of the Union,
with the certainty of more differences to come.
I say that our departure has become inevitable
with some regret. Being against the Common Market in the first
place is not the same thing as looking forward to our leaving,
since the process will be drawn out and sure to produce much ill-temper
both here and abroad. Among our EU partners, France and Germany
will be particularly annoyed - two countries with whom we should
always aim to have the most amicable relations.
But we cannot allow this to stand between
us and our own well-being. It is a consoling thought that, in
the much longer run, our relations with these two countries would
improve.
Outside the EU, we would have far less to
quarrel about. Even that leading Europhile Lord (Roy) Jenkins
has conceded that. We shall depart because the balance of advantage,
both politically and economically, already so plainly in favour
of leaving, will become overwhelming. The narrow majority which
said in a recent Mori poll that it would vote to leave the EU,
will grow steadily.
No hope can any longer be pinned on the
doctrine of 'subsidiarity' - individual nations deciding more
for themselves and Brussels deciding less. The opposite has happened.
And the Nice proposals involved even more power going to the centre.
Even if we managed to stop most or all of
those plans, it would be only a matter of time before they resurfaced.
And the plans for a federal superstate have, of course, a ratchet
affect. There is no going back. The powers being taken now go
miles beyond those once excused as necessary for the functioning
of the single market. For instance, aims for a uniform legal system
have nothing to do with economics.
And so to that balance sheet.....
There is a popular belief, eagerly fed by
EU-enthusiasts with confusing statistics, that we are massively
dependent economically on Continental Europe and that leaving
would risk millions of jobs. It simply isn't true. Sales of British
exports to Europe comprise just 40% of our total worldwide exports
of goods and services. But, in fact, exports make up a minor part
of our total production. Those to the EU account for little more
than 10% of our annual national output.
Ironically the absurdity of the threat-to-jobs
claim was shown up earlier this year in a study commissioned by
Britain In Europe, the Blair-backed organisation charged with
glorifying the single currency. Martin Weale, the Euro-inclined
head of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research,
concluded that 175,000 jobs - out of a total work force of 27
million - would be lost within three years of leaving the EU.
But that was only if the Government did not take any remedial
steps.
In any case, the EU nations sell more to
us than we do to them (our trade balance with the rest of the
world is, by contrast, favourable). We are the EU's biggest single
export market, bigger even than the US. So Continental nations
have a powerful interest in maintaining the flow. You can imagine
the alarm there would be among such firms as Mercedes and BMW
if anyone suggested curbing their lucrative markets here.
But there is no danger of our trade being
'cut off'. When we joined the Common Market, tariffs between nations
were high. These days they are very low, averaging around 4%.
And the World Trade Organisation has the aim - endorsed by the
EU - to get them down to zero. We would be in an immensely powerful
position to insist on a Free Trade agreement with zero tariffs
such as Norway and Switzerland have with the EU. Besides, British
businesses would benefit directly from leaving the EU because
they would no longer be subject to the cramping rules and red
tape which have flowed - and are likely to flow on an increasing
scale - from the Social Chapter and other Brussels schemes. The
threat of trades unions being involved in business decisions would
vanish, as would a host of other supposed 'reforms'. We would
be left with a significant competitive advantage.
It is no good to say that the EU would,
in some way, not 'allow' us that advantage. As a genuinely independent
nation we would be entirely at liberty to make up our own rules.
Some people seem to have forgotten, sadly, what it means to be
free.
On the direct contributions side we would
no longer be paying a net £5.5 billion a year to Brussels,
most of which goes on the monstrous Common Agricultural Policy
(CAP) - for whose radical reform we are still waiting after 30
years of promises. It remains a scheme devised essentially for
the benefit of French farmers and keeps food prices high with
little benefit to British farmers. Being outside the CAP would
allow the annual cost of food to fall by about £250 a head.
At the same time we could go back to an agricultural policy (perhaps
following the successful New Zealand model) designed to suit ourselves.
For instance, the Brussels rule which forbids us producing all
our own milk would immediately go.
Outside the EU we could at once reclaim
our fishing grounds so disgracefully given away by the Heath government
in its supine pleading for Common Market membership. It would
transform the outlook for our fishermen at a stroke. We could
return to our own conservation policies, those which made the
acquisition of rights in British waters a gift to Continental
fishermen who had bothered so little about stocks.
The economic advantages of being outside
the EU would march hand in hand with the political advantages.
Over the past 30 years, Brussels has produced
a staggering 25,000 regulations and directives - on matters ranging
from cheese-making and hedgerows to the insistance that we accept
giant goods vehicles and strengthen our bridges. Very few have
even come before Parliament for debate, let alone a vote.
We rarely know how ministers or Brussels
civil servants arrive at their decisions, or which national representative
voted for what. Outside the EU any rules made would be our own
and they could be reversed through a change of government.
Outside the EU we would no longer have to
fear demands that we should harmonise direct or indirect tax rates
or rules on immigration, police, competition, regional policy
and all the rest.
There would be no question of being subject
to a community rule about minimum VAT. Indeed, we could abandon
the costly VAT system with all its red tape. We adopted it in
place of our previous indirect taxes only in order to join the
Common Market. On our own we could go over to simple sales taxes,
such as operate in the US.
We would certainly not need to contribute
to any rescue scheme for the huge deficits in EU countries' pension
schemes - few of them having our own system of properly funded
company schemes.
Such an expensive menace has regularly been
dismissed as unreal. But the idea floated in Nice that all member
nations could be called upon to help individual countries in trouble
indicates that the pensions menace should be taken seriously.
So far, so good - and simple too. But what
about what about the direct investment from countries like the
US and Japan which has flowed into Britain in recent years, often
because we offer a sound base for trading with the rest of the
EU?
Here, I admit, there is a difficulty, though
only a temporary one. Certainly, in the period running up to an
exit from the EU, foreign investors would become nervous and the
size of the flow would decline.However, once it became clear that
we could and would negotiate good trading arrangements, the flow
would resume. The attractions of Britain as a commercial base
would actually increase as it became clear that we would have
access to EU markets without being bound by its sclerotic regulations.
On the legal side, on our own we would no
longer be threatened by an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights -
how innocuous it sounds - which endangers our own legal system
and practices.
The only real barrier to our leaving the
EU, apart from some hard bargaining, is psychological. Many people
worry how we could survive 'on our own'. It is an odd question
to ask about the world's fourth largest economy and a country
which has a larger network of diplomatic and trade relationships
than any other EU nation and, incidentally, the largest and most
effective military forces too.
The question should really be stood on its
head. We should ask how could the country survive as a recognisable
independent nation within the EU.
For those who think it important to 'belong'
to some international group, there is the North Atlantic Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which includes the US, Canada and Mexico.
It is a proper free trade area which leaves member nations free
to make all their own laws. We would be welcome as members.
But membership of Nafta is not essential.
It is an optional add-on.The balance of advantage in leaving the
EU is so striking - and threatens to become more so as the European
political concept is developed - that some may be puzzled that
neither of the main parties advocates departure. (What politicians
on both sides say off the record is another matter).
So what would we lose? Very simply Britain
would no longer play a role in forging what EU politicians see
so excitedly as a potential superpower, able to challenge the
US in size and influence. To which the appropriate answer is "So
What?".
Remember the purpose of the whole European
venture. First it was to prevent France and Germany ever going
to war again. Second, it was a vehicle for France's grand ambition
to lead a Europe which could openly challenge American power and
influence. Third, it would offer a way to safeguard European agriculture.
Fourth, it would demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxon free market
economic model was not the best path to prosperity.
The first aim would seem to have been met
- and never needed us anyway. The second may be achievable but
amounts to a dangerous power game. The agriculture plan has pushed
up food prices and driven down farm incomes. The fourth aim has
been disproved by events - see French and German unemployment
levels for example.
The fierce national debate about Europe
will continue. But it will shift gradually and remorselessly from
the terms on which we stay, to the terms on which we leave. Hard
facts will prevail over political nonsense.
