BETTER OFF OUT

Would we be better off out of the European Union?

The EU is not a recipe for prosperity. It is not a recipe for jobs.

The EU is encroaching on our criminal justice system eroding English common law and slicing away our protections against an overweening state.

The EU is not a recipe for freedom.  It promotes the power of the state over citizens.

The Better Off Out campaign is here to encourage, support and promote a great national debate on this most critical issue of our time. It is here to counter the narrow propaganda of the last decades, which has so sapped our national strength to be independent. It is here to promote British freedom and prosperity.  MORE

The Cost of the EU's Environment Policy

Often, when you hear about the costs of environmental legislation introduced to increase the amount of renewable energy we produce, the British government is blamed for burdening small businesses and average households with more costs. The British government seems to meekly accept this. They are accepting the blame for something they haven’t done however. It is in fact thanks to the EU that we are bankrupting ourselves in the name of looking green. The reason why we are trying to cut our carbon emissions so dramatically comes from the EU’s renewable energy directive that came into fruition in 2008. Like many things coming out of the EU it is a directive that harms both individuals and businesses.

This is allowed to happen because environmental policy is an area where the EU supranational bodies are in charge and member states such as Britain get little say over their own environmental policies. The aim of the EU in this areas seem to be to make Britain poorer but greener. It is also the EU that has imposed the target of Britain having at least 15% of their fuel coming from renewable energy in 2020 ignoring the economic consequences that trying to meet this impossible target has caused.

The economic consequences are startling. Thanks to the European Union trying to boost its green credentials, the average family could be paying up to 18% more in energy costs according to a report on green policies by Civitas. It is not as if fuel costs are not already a problem for an average family. This is highlighted by the fact that there are 5 Million people in fuel poverty and although, like any government, the present coalition government have said they want to reduce this number the current energy policy that comes straight from our masters in the EU will only make a bad situation even worse. The other group, that is already under mountains of regulation thanks to the EU, that will be adversely affected is businesses. Thanks to the target, an average business will be paying £246,000 a year more. It is not as if before they were not paying for the cost of green policies. Already in 2008 according to Civitas environmental legislation was adding 21% to the costs of average businesses. This in particular effects small businesses who may be forced to close down due to the additional costs.

Phillip Davies Conservative MP for Shipley and a member of Better Off Out hits the nail on the head saying “This target is absolutely ludicrous, the last thing the British public want are higher bills when they are already struggling financially.  If ordinary people were given a choice between higher fuels bills and leaving the EU… I know which way they would vote”.  

 

CCHQ gets it completely wrong on the EU

An excellent article by Alex Singleton who is a contributing editor for the Sunday Telegraph skewers the position of the elites of the Conservative Party on the EU and in doing so highlights how CCHQ abandoned its supporters in the process as well as losing electoral support.

Alex reminds us that if more Conservative MPs and prospective Conservative MPs came out to be truly Eurosceptic by saying that Britain would be Better Off Out of the EU and calling for a referendum on our membership of the European Union then it would have been a vote winner. This is made clear by an Angus-Reid poll that showed that 59% of the public believe the EU is bad for Britain. Alex then rightly highlights that the number is likely to be higher for Conservative members. With numbers like this from the British public surely parliamentarians in Westminster cannot afford to ignore them? Surely it is time that the Conservative Party started representing their activists’ views? If not then people in the country would be right to say that the entire parliament and in particular a majority of Conservative MPs in it apart from a noble few are not representing the public at large.

Alex then goes into detail in the article about pressure put on Conservative MPs and prospective candidates from Conservative Central Office on not joining Better Off Out. He highlights how, at the moment, by joining Better Off Out you cannot work yourself up to a cabinet position. Effectively blackmail is being used to stop MPs expressing their views. In the article it is highlighted by an A-list candidate that if he wanted to win over his constituency association he would have joined Better Off Out but he didn’t due to the position of the Conservative Leadership.

It is not as if the Conservative leadership doesn’t realise that Euroscepticsm is an effective selling point to the British public. Indeed, as such, it is mentioned in the article how Michael Howard tried to get Nigel Farage to join the Conservative Party as long as he didn’t mention EU withdrawal. Thankfully Farage did not accept. Perhaps it is time for more conservative MPs to listen to their conscience and join Better Off Out ignoring the blackmailing of the Conservative party leadership.

Alex Singleton commenting on the matter has said, “When the leadership of the Conservative Party spend so much time in the trendiest London districts talking to other members of the political elite, they get an entirely warped view of how the public view the EU. They should spend more time with normal voters: then they would know what the polls show, which is that most of us believe that we would be Better Off Out.”

To conclude Alex's article proves that the elites of the Conservative party have a disdain for populist politics. If they continue on this path it will lead to their electoral downfall. However, if they start listening to their activists and the public at large by becoming truly Eurosceptic, they may just see an upturn in their electoral fortunes and the public may start to trust the Conservative Party once again. 

 

The beautiful game meets the European Commission

If you thought it was impossible for the EU to interfere into any more areas of UK life, then think again. The work of a European Bureaucrat is never done. There is always somewhere else to interfere, some organisation or business to annoy and some money to be taken. This week the premier league has been stopped in its tracks. All of a sudden if the EU gets it way football will not be such a simple and beautiful game. 

The European Commission has confirmed that it is considering introducing rules banning football clubs from having deficits of more than 45 Million Euros a year. This would lead to some of the best European clubs, many of which are based in England such as Chelsea and Man City, being banned from European competitions. Whilst it is clear that the finances of premier league clubs are not always in order, it is not in the job description of the European Commission to be the general manager of a football club. They are meant to be the government of the EU not the government of football clubs. Syed Kamall, a British Conservative MEP for London, was right in criticising the bill saying that “while fans want to see their clubs' finances managed responsibly, it should be up to club bosses to handle their finances, not the EU.” I’m sure for those who want to see British football clubs flourish to benefit the British economy we want Brussels to leave Britain’s football clubs alone.

Some argue that the European Commission, in its proposed legislation, is targeting the premier league due to other member state’s jealousy of how successful it has been in generating money. The UK premier league is far too successful for the EU’s liking. Just like the City of London before it, the EU wants to control the premier league’s success because it is showing up the other European leagues as poor relations. This power to introduce sports regulations shows that the EU can interfere, even in areas that are supposedly the preserve of national governments. The EU obtained wide powers of sports regulations within the Lisbon Treaty.

Be it football, economics or individual freedom, the EU bureaucrats cannot keep their nose out of it. The Lisbon Treaty has made it easier for European Bureaucrats to interfere in member states’ livelihoods. It’s time for the UK to stand up to the EU and stop letting them interfere in everything we do.  Once again, this highlights that by being in the EU, the nation’s ability to make its own decisions on how to run its industries is taken away from it. 

 

The EU is bad for trade. Fact.

An argument ad-nauseam we hear from Euro-fanatics is that we benefit from being in the EU due to the trade advantages we get from being a member of the EU. They paint a nightmare scenario saying that if we left the EU we would lose many trading opportunities and therefore the economy would be damaged significantly. Like many Euro-fanatic campaigns the claims have little basis in fact. In fact what actually happens is completely the opposite of what the Euro-fanatics say.

Thanks to a probing question by the Independent Labour peer Lord Stoddart on the 25^th November to the government and answered by Lord Taylor of Holbeach, we now see that our actual relationship with the EU is extremely detrimental to our trading ability. The UK has run up a colossal deficit of over £260 Billion with the EU in the ten-year period 2000-2009. Clearly then the so-called trade advantages we constantly hear about are illusory. Furthermore considering money is scarce; this is not where you would like to see money being wasted on. 

To put this large number into context the budget deficit that is hardly a small number stood at the end of 2009/10 at 170.8 Billion.   The government is committed to cutting the size of the national deficit. However the EU deficit that is much larger is ignored. The government needs to wake up to the fact that if we want to put our economy back on track we need to leave the EU. Once again Britain is giving more to other EU member states than they are getting back. It highlights how our relationship with the EU is a lose-lose situation. 

Lord Stoddarts response to the matter summed up the situation nicely. Lord Stoddart commenting on the government’s response said that “These figures speak for themselves and expose the lie that being in the EU brings Britain trade ‘benefits’. These shocking trade figures together with the disastrous performance of the euro, for which we are having to pick the bill, more than ever indicate that it is time for us to pull out of the EU.”

Lord Stoddart’s probing should once and for all bury the lie that the EU is a paradise of free trade where members benefit from trading relationships. It is in fact the opposite. It is a protectionist grouping with little economic growth which is holding the UK back. Additionally, because of Britain’s history as an empire we have a large commonwealth who due to the imposition of EU tariffs for countries outside the EU have suffered from a lack of trade with the UK.  If we left the EU we could then start trading with these countries who we are much less likely to build up a trade deficit with.

It is therefore clear if we want to be able to benefit from the fruits of worldwide trade we need to leave the protectionist EU.

For those who would like to see the full answer to Lord Stoddart’s question please go to: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101125w0001.htm#10112535000619

 

Britain in the EU: locked in an economic prison and bound by legislative chains

One of the continually repeated myths about Britain’s membership of the EU is that of the economic “benefits”. However, a closer look at some key economic facts would lead any rational observer to conclude that any perceived economic “benefits” of EU membership were far, far outweighed by the EU’s unaffordable and growing economic burden that is dragging Britain down in the 21^st century.

Here are a few economic facts about Britain’s EU membership worth considering:

• In 10/11 Britain paid a gross annual contribution of around £13 billion into the EU budget. By 2015 this will have increased to a massive £19 billion per annum.

• The £13 billion “fee” gives Britain membership of a protectionist customs union where further EU directives and regulations (legislative chains) burden the British economy with additional costs estimated at around £100 billion per annum due to lost income, declining growth, excessive and unnecessary regulation and, worryingly, an expansion of Government to implement EU policy.

• From 2000-2009 Britain’s cumulative trade deficit with the EU was £283.4 billion.

• In terms of share of world trade the EU is in long term decline. In 1980 the EU accounted for 36% of world trade, by 2010 this had fallen to 26% and by 2025 it is estimated that the EU’s share of world trade will be 15%.

• As the euro currency starts to collapse, Britain is required, by the EU, to contribute to the national bail outs and underwriting of euro members. Bankrupt Britain is now forced to borrow £7 billion to bail out Ireland’s euro crisis and yet Britain, outside of the euro, has no reciprocal guarantee from euro nations if our currency and economy collapse.

To summarise, the “benefits” of EU membership involve Britain paying £13 billion per annum (and rising) to be expensively and often ruinously regulated by a declining, undemocratic customs union with which we are running massive trade deficits.

The Government, having refused to commission a cost benefit analysis of membership, proclaim that the economic benefits of this one sided arrangement are “self evident”. How many other Governments around the world, looking to advance their economies and benefit their people, would sign their country up to the kind of expensive and ruinous economic relationship with their neighbours that Britain has with the EU?

Switzerland, outside of the EU, manages to export twice as much per head to the EU as Britain does without having to sign up to the onerous terms of a one sided and financially extortionate pre war political project that, disturbingly, becomes more un-democratic by the day .

Britain must perform a Houdini act and make a great escape out of the EU’s prison of nations.

As the financial and democratic deficits mount up, we really would be Better Off Out because it would be a national disaster to remain in.

 

British Citizens may be subject to German Laws

I have recently seen emails from MPs on the European Investigation Order that highlight the government still does not understand the dangers of the European Investigation Order.

The European Investigation Order, for those who don’t know, is the latest power grab from Brussels over the UK’s criminal justice system. Thanks to signing up to the European Investigation Order, despite real concerns about the threats it posed to civil liberties and national sovereignty, British police could be forced to take orders to investigate so called crimes on behalf of police forces from other EU member states. Furthermore it means that British citizens can be investigated for crimes that are crimes in one EU member state but not in the UK. An example of this is holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is not a crime in the UK due to freedom of speech, meaning freedom to offend. However it is a crime in Germany, and if a German prosecutor wanted to investigate a British citizen for this crime, they can now do so.

I was very disappointed when I viewed emails from MPs on the European Investigation Order. It highlighted a policy towards the EU based on capitulation and lies. The biggest lie being that no sovereignty had been transferred whatsoever, despite the evidence to the contrary. There was also no mention whatsoever made of the numerous organisations such as Fair Trials International who have expressed strong concerns about the European Investigation Order. No mention is made of brave parliamentarians like Dominic Raab, David Davis and Lord Stoddart who spoke out against the European Investigation Order.

The emails do not mention the numerous concerns about the effect the European Investigation Order would have on individual freedom in this country. There are fears that it just provides another way for the state apparatus to spy on innocent citizens. Furthermore, there are concerns that we will turn to a more continental based system of justice, which is not concerned with such concepts as “innocent until proven guilty”. The government assures us that, as they have opted in to the European Investigation Order, they will be able to influence the drafting of the policy to ensure that safeguards for civil liberties are made and that national sovereignty is protected. As the history of the UK being part of the Common Agricultural Policy has highlighted, our influence on matters pertaining to the EU is little. The chance of the UK government being able to negotiate the draft version of the European Investigation Order to their satisfaction is about as likely as pigs flying. Furthermore, there are no safeguards once the European Investigation Order is fully implemented. This is because, as Lord Stoddart’s question to Baroness Neville Jones highlighted, we cannot opt out of the legislation. Again the emails do not recognise this important fact.

There are also some key words within the emails that fill me with dread. Whenever the last Labour government tried to defend further powers being given to the EU they would use the term “practical measures”. They came out with this stock answer whenever questioned on the Lisbon Treaty. The Conservative opposition criticised the previous Labour government for taking this line believing they were being dishonest with the British people. However they have fallen back on this line when in government defending further transfers of power to the EU.

To conclude we face severe threats to our national sovereignty and ancient liberties. It is time that the coalition government woke up to the threats.

Daily Express Launch BETTER OFF OUT Campaign

The Daily Express has today become the first national newspaper to call for the UK to leave the EU. This is a huge development in the Better Off Out movement, and finally there is a newspaper that acurately represents the views of the majority of Britons with regard to the EU.

The Daily Express argued that the failing Euro and the bailout packages were the last straw. "A payment of up to £10billion for Ireland is apparently just the start, with speculators now starting to target the embattled economy of Portugal." In recent years, rather than clawing back power and reestablishing British sovereignty, our relationship with the EU has gone in the opposite direction. At a time of austerity, when the majority of government departments are facing cuts of up to 40%, Briton's contributions to the EU are rising.

A recent documentary by Channel 4 called 'Riding Europe's Gravy Train' highlighted the huge dishonesty associated with the EU and its spending. Furthermore, research conducted by Open Europe exposed the latest wave of ridiculous spending by the EU. Amongst my favourites are '€16,000 to Tyrolean farmers to boost their emotional connection with the landscape' and '€411,000 for a dog fitness and rehabilitation centre that was never built'. To view more please Download Open Europe - Top 50 EU Waste.

 For the general public, today's announcement by the Daily Express is long overdue. Nevertheless, it is still a move in a positive direction and is a huge boost to the Better Off Out campaign. Let's hope other media follows swiftly in tow.

A House Divided – Can Parliament serve two masters: the Nation and the European Union?

Having pledged to defend British interests and oppose further concessions to the European Union, the Coalition Government has in the space of a few weeks agreed to increase the UK’s contribution to the EU budget and to bail out the Republic of Ireland in order to salvage the Euro.

So, why has the Prime Minister gone back on his promises and instead capitulated to Brussels by handing over billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money to sustain the EU bureaucracy and prop up failing economies in the Euro-Zone?

A new booklet from the cross-party Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB) lays bare the truth about the UK’s relationship with the European Union, and attempts to explain why successive British governments have found the juggernaut of European integration seemingly unstoppable.

Co-authored by two Parliamentarians – Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative MP for Kettering) and Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Independent Labour member of the House of Lords) – A House Divided makes clear just how much power has already slipped out of the hands of the British people, how much faster the process of EU integration has become since the Lisbon Treaty, and what must be done if we are to save what remains of the UK’s sovereignty, democracy and freedom.

A House Divided is absolutely essential reading for everyone who cares about democracy and the rights and liberties of the British people.

A House Divided – Can Parliament serve two masters: the Nation and the European Union?

Price £2.50 including postage, from SMP Ltd, 1 Barnfield, Common Lane, Hemingford Abbots, Huntingdon PE28 9AX.

 

To purchase your copy, please Tel: 01480 399098, or email: pf.smp@dial.pipex.com

Simon Richards and Lindsay Jenkins to debate EU at Durham Union

Simon Richards, Director of The Freedom Association, will be arguing the case for leaving the EU this Friday 26th November, at Durham Union. He will be joined by Lindsay Jenkins, Director of TFA's BETTER OFF OUT campaign, and Viscount Monkton. They will be proposing "This house would leave the EU". On the otherside will be Chris Bryant MP, former Minister for Europe, Hugh Charlton, Green Party Law Office and Thomas Ball.

For more information, please click here.

Wasteful EU spending

Image via Wikipedia

The pressure group Open Europe recently published a report on wasteful EU spending. 50 areas of waste were identified and it makes shocking reading. Bearing in mind that we are facing spending cuts domestically it is madness that our EU budget is set to rise a further 2.9% to fund projects such as these:

€2.4 million children's planetarium sold for €150,000. A planetarium in a children's themepark in Sweden cost taxpayers €2.4 million when it opened in 2000, €850,000 of which came from EU subsidies. Five years later the project turned out to be a complete disaster and was sold to private buyers for €150,000.

€400,000 for videomaking festival to promote EU citizenship. The European Cultural Foundation spent €400,000 on its 'Stranger' festival in Amsterdam, for 150 young people to develop their videomaking skills in the 'Stranger Academy'. Short films were entered into a competition aiming to promote 'intercultural dialogue' and EU citizenship.

€725,000 on unused body scanners. After 9/11 the European Commission spent €725,000 on six controversial body scanners to install in European airports. In October 2008 the European Parliament voted against the use of the scanners, leaving them unused and, as of January 2009, without a buyer.

The full list can be found here. It is worth reading the entire list, it might provide a few laughs if you can see the funny side of it.

Related articles

• European Commission spent £124,000 on gay activists' conference (telegraph.co.uk)
• New EU building costing £850m of taxpayers' money a 'pointless extravagance' (dailymail.co.uk)
• EU's wasters blow £160k on dog gym (thesun.co.uk)