Britain's E.U membership
THE TRUTH ABOUT EUROPE
THE LIE:
"BRITAIN'S TRADE NEEDS EU MEMBERSHIP"
THE FACTS:
Britain has trade surpluses with every continent - EXCEPT THE EUROPEAN UNION. The EU deficit wipes out all other surpluses. The EU would do Britain a favour by restricting trade should Britain withdraw from EU membership.
When Britain joined the "Common Market" in 1973 we did have a small trading surplus with the countries which now make up the EU. Since then EU Rules, Directives and unfair trading practises have -
Wiped out most of the British Fishing Industry. Quota systems are set which fishermen cannot live on. EU Grants are given to fishermen to destroy their boats. Foreign fishing fleets take the vast majority of British fish, often with the aid of EU grants. Billions of fish, as many as are landed, are thrown back into the sea dead polluting the waters. All in the name of "conservation"!
Forced us to import food which we could easily produce ourselves under EU "Quota Systems".
Illegally subsidised imported fuel from other EU countries decimated our Coal Mining Industry (admittedly with an all too willing Conservative Government letting it happen). Similarly with the British steel industry in the 1980's, 'buying off' steelworkers' jobs with a series of EU redundancy grants and similar 'sweeteners'.
Attacked the Beef Industry with panic legislation. Also very probably they have suppressed the facts about what may be the true cause of BSE (i.e. Organo-phosphates - used by farmers under Government rules at a concentration four times higher than anywhere else in Europe!) probably because of compensation costs.
In the name of EU 'environmental protection' laws our countryside has become polluted by industrial waste, car batteries and waste of all kinds simply because people and businesses cannot find their way through the maze of rules and regulations or refuse to pay the crazy administration costs of these new laws.
Small firms fail purely because of EU Rules and Directives (aided and abetted by a huge overstaffed and over-zealous army of British Bureaucrats; their jobs no doubt created by Government more to hide unemployment figures than to do useful work). This 'Army' promotes fear, havoc and crippling compliance costs. (British abattoirs couldn't cope with culling the cattle from the beef crises because most the industry's small businesses were forced to close because of EU rules.)
Some Trade Facts: a. Trade Balance Deficit with EU 1988 - 1996 £133 Billion. Rest of the world trade in surplus. b. Britain does 4 - 5 times as much trade in dollars as in DM/French francs combined. c. In 1997 Britain attracted 4 times as many inward investment projects as our nearest EU rival (Germany). d. Britain is the world's largest investor in the world's largest economy (USA). e. The Commonwealth invests twice as much in Britain as EU countries.
The EU is forcing VAT on Britain's International Auctioneer's trade where London is the World leader. Other EU countries have no trading interest. Result? Another industry lost to Britain.
With the costs of decimalisation, metrication, Europeanisation, fraud, scams, propaganda, gravy trains, EMU conversion, EU budget contributions, etc. etc. we now also know -
THE TRUTH:
"EU MEMBERSHIP ACTUALLY DAMAGES BRITAIN'S TRADE"
SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH
So as we struggle to find a way out of this corrupt, inefficient and autocratic European Superstate we may do worse than look for answers amongst the literary works of Douglas Adams (Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy). As echoes of "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" ring in our ears we search for a meaning behind all this - and find, in the absence of any other sane or sensible reason for Britain's membership of the EU, the answer - as in the book - must indeed be 42...
Ó TEC 1998