Something that our politicians will not provide as they always respond that the benefits are obvious.
Thanks to Gerard Batten, Ukip MEP, we do have the latest cost/benefit analysis available which he does every two years. The latest can be viewed here.
A few facts to whet the appetite:
The total EU Budget for 2000-2006 was 650.69 billion euros. The budget for 2007-2013 will be an estimated 866.31 billion euros - a rise of more than 33%
Britain's net contribution to the budget period 2000-2006 was £21.3 billion. Our estimated net contribution for 2007-2013 will be over £42 billion - a staggering rise of more than 97%
If we add the net contribution to the budget (after the UK rebate and regional aid) and the indirect costs for 2010, we get a total of £77 billion. This equates to £6.4 billion per month; £1.5 billion per week; £211 million per day; £8.8 million per hour and £146,499 per minute. This equates to £1,246 for every man, woman and child in the UK or £2,516 for every taxpayer in the UK.
As Gerard Batten says:
"My position is very clear: if my findings are inaccurate then let the Government commission an independent cost-benefit analysis and prove me wrong. If Britain benefits from EU membership then let those that advocate it prove it.Seems a reasonable challenge to me - what say you, Mr. Cameron?
In my view membership of the EU is an economic and democratic disaster and that the only solution for Britain is unconditional withdrawal."
Update: People want transparency - Here is access to Gerard Batten's salary and expenses - this is a man who turned down an increase of £19,000 per annum!
11 comments:
The problem of doing a cost/benefit analysis is that it is not as straight forward as "we pay in X, they give us back Y." I have struggled with this for years and one has to take into account several things outside of the Brussels/London" Exchange to get a better picture. The truth is a very large number of jobs depend on trade with the EU. I doubted the figures given by HMRC some years ago that 80% of our manufactured goods exports are to the EU - but they are correct. Departure from the EU may allow us to keep some of this, but the truth is we'd probably lose most of that market.
Since the 1960s we've also p**'d pff almost all our "Commonwealth Partners" by imposing various zany political agendas, trade restrictions and migration/visiting restrictions on them - so now they buy their goods and sell their materials to everyone else but us. The Aussies don't buy a great deal from us, the US won't, Canada makes its own and exports things our way and the Caribbean countries no longer buy from us either - the US is, after all on their doorstep and is a much more reliable trading partner.
Most of our assets are now European owned (Agusta owns what used to be Westland and is based in Italy, De Haviland was sold to Canada, BAe is mostly French, most of our banks are Spanish and even the Grauniad and Daily Mirror are based offshore for tax purposes.) Even Cunard is owned by Maersk, P&O is owned by an Oil Sheik ...
In short, on our own we're probably bankrupt.
Personally I loathe the Brussels regime and want to see it reformed. The appointment by an unelected Council of Ministers of the Commissioners has to be stopped. We should be fighting for direct election of these fat cats and for a directly elected President of the EU.
The biggest question I have in all of this - is why does each EU country have to have a duplicate of the Brussels Bureaucracy eating their heads off at our expense, producing nothing worthwhile and expanding their powers and staffing exponentially while the rest of us take pay cuts, struggle to make ends meet and pay our way.
Start at home - a 50% reduction in the staffing of the Civil Service, new contracts for the remainder that include the clause "Screw up anything and you're fired!" and a reduction in the number of MPs. We don't need 654 of the parasites and all their hangers on. Once we have our own administration and political house in order we can tackle Brussels/Strasbourg.
BTW, why do we still not have an English Parliament? Why are Scottish MPs allowed to vote on laws applicable only in England and Wales and not to their constituencies? Why are we still subsidising the freewheeling spending of the Scottish National Party government?
@Gray Monk
Because England has not devolved from the Union. As for England financing Scotland, this is a popular myth, but just that. A myth. Were Scotland to become independent then the splitting of revenue from the North Sea oil would cost the treasury far more than the subsidy currently paid to Scotland. Why do you think English PM's have been so keen to hang on the Scotland? Because of their deep love of the Union? Pffft!
The earnings of the lowest income groups in Germany have declined 22% since 2000......yet German corporations are having a grand time exporting and seeking welders and engineers throughout Europe.
It is hard to credit the EU as having been unalloyed success for ordinary people
Mr Batten's cost analysis of our contribution to the socialist EU project is the best we have. Having looked at it, the figures make sense to me; and he gives a net contribution figure, which means each year we give that lot over in Brussels £42billion. If that wasn't sufficient to convince everyone of us that we must get out of this socialist dictatorship, then I suspect nothing will. As for benefits; well, what are they? MPs with so much free time that they can fiddle their expenses, lie and deceive us about everything. Meddle with every aspect of the individual's life, because they have nothing else with which to occupy their time? The dictatorship of refuse collection, whereby we have a system that doesn't give those who pay for it, the service they want. I can't point to one thing that has benefitted us/me that the EU has provided. It's not wanted and it's not needed. I think I'd prefer us to have our own dictator, if the first thing he did was to unilaterally withdraw the UK (or should that be England alone?) from the EU.
RTS - That split depends on where you draw the boundary. Actually the bulk of the oil/gas lies south of it, and the Treasury's own figures show the amounts raised in Scotland don't balance with what is spent there.
Yes, the lowest paid jobs in Germany have declined, but the German government is addressing this in a sensible way, not by imposing wage minima that make certain commercial activities nonviable - such as fruit picking in Kent where the fruit has rotted on the trees because labour has become too expensive to pick it and sell it at a price consumers will pay in competition with imports from South America etc.
Britain's welfare system is crippling the economy and this will get far worse in the future as the cost of all employment in the UK rises ever higher because of the manner in which the Civil Service 'Gold Plates' every EU Directive. This doesn't happen anywhere else - yet the UK continues to behave as if this is how it has to be.
The EU is a smokescreen - the civil service, the unions and the politicians are robbing us blind behind it!
I don't agree with your conclusions, Grey Monk. "... but the truth is we'd probably lose most of that market." I don't think it would reduce that figure, indeed I suspect we would have a better trade balance if for no other reason that we would not be bound by EU procurement rules that forces us to source much of our infrastructure expenditure from EU firms. One thing is certain, the EU would have more to lose from a trade war than we would.
Also while it is true that we have ruined our trade relationship with the commonwealth that was forced on us by EU or actually EEC diktat. Broken fences can always be mended if the will is there.
"Personally I loathe the Brussels regime and want to see it reformed. The appointment by an unelected Council of Ministers of the Commissioners has to be stopped." There is no possibility of that. The entire EU project is based on the belief that government is too important to allow democracy to direct it, advise it, yes, direct it, no. The foundation belief of the EU is that nationalism and demagogic democracy inevitably lead to instability and war. Ideal government in EU eyes is by an apolitical, self-appointing commissariat of governmental experts. Even a cursory examination of EU history and development shows that clearly, failing that ask any continental friends you may have.
I do agree with your penultimate paragraph, though. :-)
TGM: I do not accept your findings and can only repeat the comments by PC.
The fact that, to use your words, mmost of our assets are foreign owned is neither here nor there. the are not going to upsticks just because we left the EU. Neither do I accept we would lose a 'european' market - they need us far more than we need them.
As PC says reform from within just will not happen. The EU is built on totalinarism, not a system of democracy.
Your question about not having an English Parl is to a certain extent a smokescreen. The present system of government in this country does not work. If politicians believe in a parliamentary system, why do we need devolved politicians. If we do, what are MPs for? It would be far easier and cheaper if Welsh MPs voted on Welsh matters, Scottish etc and English etc and then came together on national matters such as defence.
RTS: Point about devolution quite correct. Disagree with your view of the oil revenue as that is a national asset - who said devolution to Scotland meant ownership of territorial waters?
TT: Agreed.
jic: Agreed. And I come back to Batten's challenge. To government I say disprove it then.......
TGM: See above comments on your first comment. Do agree with your last two paragraphs though.
PC: You saved me a lot of typing, thanks. Don't agree with your last comment though - see above.
TGM
"The EU is a smokescreen - the civil service, the unions and the politicians are robbing us blind behind it!"
That's definitely true. It's also true that the EU isn't entirely a foreign government imposing unpopular diktats onto an unwilling UK government. Many of these things are pushed for, or at least not opposed, by the UK representatives in Brussels and gleefully gold-plated when they emerge. This is what they mean by "Britain in the Heart of Europe", leading by example.
Removing the EU would remove the smokescreen, and would have the useful effect of removing the UK government's comfort blanket, but the EU isn't the sole source of the problem. The real problem is big government; the idea the government can and should meddle in everything when the evidence is that most things governments do are done badly.
You are correct cosmic, the UK Establishment is irredeemably social democrat, as are all the three main political parties, indeed it is so across the whole European political scene, this is the status quo since WW2 where even Margaret Thatcher could only go a little closer to traditional Conservatism and that was almost entirely in industrial de-nationalisation terms, the scope and scale of welfare provision continued to expand. It is little wonder they approve of all things EU and take every opportunity to gold plate every directive.
You are also correct that big government and their insatiable compulsion to meddle in every thing they can is the real problem, as we have long agreed on this blog.
I agree with PeterCharles.
TGM & PC: You both make valid points so thank you.
AKH: It is extremely rare that I do not agree with PC!
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