Don't confuse Europe with EU

We love Europe but not EU's politics

Written for the Sunday Times commenting on Jeremy Clarkson's rumination:

Jeremy Clarkson has totally missed the point of Britain’s EU referendum. Like many people he is confounding the 51 nation-Europe, where we all love to holiday, (News Review 13th March Jeremy recalls pottering down the canals of France or hurtling along a motorway in Croatia), with the political European Union that has systematically stripped the UK of power to negotiate trade agreements with the 53 Commonwealth nations and non-EU countries of the world.

It's not about more Syrians if we stay in the EU, as surmised by Jeremy. The “normal people” Jeremy spoke to, tell him it comes down to the Freedom of Movement of people from 27 EU member-states, mainly ex-communist , Eastern Europeans with much lower economies. The last three to join the EU were Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, with a combined population of 33 million and a GDP two-thirds lower than the UK’s. 


EU laws allow these new migrants to plunder the generous UK benefit system from the day they arrive, when issued with a National Insurance Number, they sign up for Job-seekers allowance, child benefits even though the family do not live in Britain and Tax Credits if they are on low pay.  Most unskilled migrants who do not speak English will naturally pocket a huge amount to spend like a king when they go home to Eastern Europe in six months, then come back again for another six months benefits allowed. 


Meanwhile, our taxpayers have to work till they are 68 or 70 before they can access their pension, into which they contributed through a lifetime of work.  It is totally unfair to our citizens, but the Tory government turns a blind eye. Net migration for 2015 was reported by our Home Office to be 323,000 (Net = those who arrived less those who left the UK).  However 828,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to foreign workers last year, of which 630,000 went to EU citizens, who all have homes in Bulgaria, Romania, etc.  Meanwhile, our own Youths can't even find shelf-stacking jobs in supermarkets during holidays or after leaving schools, many of them are unemployed and homeless, sleeping rough. 

These EU migrants with homes and families across the British Channel, can spend their earnings and benefits at three times our value outside of Britain, whilst our young employees are trapped in this artificial depression, without the means to buy their first homes or even pay back their tuition fees.  And Turkey with a population of 77 million, being fast tracked into the EU by Angela Merkel and other countries like Bosnia-Herzegovina’s application having been lodged, things will get worse, not better for the Brits.

The only way to stop Great Britain being reduced to third world country is to vote Leave EU. The British have supported the EU from a nine-country Common Market in 1973, through to its federalisation as European Union in 1993, which expanded to include most of the ex-Soviet ex-Communist States following the break-up of the USSR to today's 28-nation EU.

Britain's influence has fallen so low that our Prime Minister David Cameron had to grovel with cap in hand for a reduction of Value Added Tax on Female tampons, because our MPs cannot reject any proposal or law passed by the European Parliament without a Majority vote of 566 MEPs.  It is an undemocratic Union under the dictatorship of one Angela Merkel.  Britain needs to vote leave if we are to survive and prosper, and for our elected government to make our own laws for our citizens, instead of being a supervisor for EU's law making machinery.


The Government must change our economic course and let Britain be sovereign again.  We are still living beyond our means; our national debt is running higher than £1.5 trillion and our National Health is in deficit of a billion pounds with Junior doctors striking for higher pay.  The EU is costing Britain more than we can afford, even the British government doesn’t quite know exactly how much it hands over to the EU each year.

The Government’s current forecast for payments to the EU Budget for 2016-2017 is £19.228 billion gross contribution to the budget, £4.444 billion is held back as British Rebate that was negotiated by Margaret Thatcher just before she was ousted as Prime Minister and John Major stepped into her shoes, but he lacked her patriotic sense of duty to Britain.  Today £4.606 billion of our contribution to the EU is spent on subsidies to Wales,  Cornwall,  Fisheries Agriculture, universities in the UK, giving an estimated net contribution of £10.178 billion.

However, bear in mind that our gross contribution is rising, the rebate is declining (thanks to Tony Blair’s ‘renegotiations’ of 2006), and the EU spends £4.6 billion of our own money in our own country on projects which they, rather than we, deem fit, such as the European Water Framework that stopped us from dredging our rivers, so the raised beds of silt and mud and contributed to damaging flooding during the severe weather in the last few years, costing Britain £millions.  A British government should be able to make better decisions than the EU on how to spend taxpayers’ money in Britain.

The indirect costs on the economy are much higher. These include the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and over-regulation on business, to name just a few. Professor Tim Congdon has calculated that the direct and indirect costs on our economy for 2015 to be 12% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or £190 billion per annum.  It is time for our government to act sensibly for the people who elected them to power, not to flitter away our taxes on Europe, especially in view of the lack-lustre leaders making all our policies and half-cock decisions on our behalf.  Just the way Germany handled the refugee crisis is evidence enough of their capability and their secret agenda in terms of equality for EU Members.

Our Empire once stretched to half the world before the two world wars knocked the stuffings out of Britain, which took us years to recoup.  It's time to assert our sovereignty again so we could thrive again without Germany looking over our shoulders all the time.

Vote "NO" at the EU Referendum on 23rd June 2016, for our bright future. 

  

VOTE LEAVE AT THE REFERENDUM

Published in the Echo on Saturday 16^th January 2016

 

Leaving the EU is the right choice

Leaving the EU is the only way to regain control of our borders, our economy and flooding. 

Scrapping many of the thousands of EU directives will enable us to restrict immigration; to alleviate housing shortage; lighten workload on our hospitals, A&E and Junior Doctors; and lift the ban on Home Office to deport foreign criminals. 

We need to scrap the European Water Framework (EWF) directives that stopped us dredging, embanking and maintaining our rivers; requiring the Environment Agency (EA) to let rivers “re-connect with their flood plains” in “undisturbed natural condition”; “giving rivers more space”; and “to improve habitat of wildlife”! 

To this end the EU made certain no funds are available for dredging and the removal of silts and gravel, considered as hazardous waste, instead, granting huge subsidies to improve wildlife habitats and for building flood defences that do not disturb river beds, some 47 river trusts had since sprung up to take advantage of EU grants. 

Meanwhile, all local river boards with experience of river-dredging were replaced by the Environment Agency (EA) which takes their orders directly from the EU and whose chairman was found wanting, as he enjoyed his holiday in Barbados whilst the severe storms raged over Britain through December 2015 into the New Year. 

The controversial act of the Environment Agency in opening the Foss Barriers to safeguard their pumps, would appear to comply with the EWF Directive, sending raging torrents of mud, silt and water through the streets of beautiful York, flooding 3,500 properties.

But there are no directives for the safety of residents or their premises; mud and silt that should have been dredged to deepen our rivers, had caused billions of pounds worth of damage to homes, businesses, farms and livestock.  

What could David Cameron do with his promise of just £40 million? 

Leaving the EU will save the £12 Billion annual EU fee, plus 73 MEPs' salary, pension & expenses, amounting to several million pounds and George Osborne can afford to abort his austerity measures against police, defence, fire-fighters and Local Councils, who can relax their cut-back on libraries and pensioner care homes, which in turn will stop hospital bed-blogging.  

No need for David Cameron to go cap-in-hand for another round of EU reform when he can boldly announce the UK’s departure for independence.

Published in the Daily Echo 21 January, 2016.