Tuesday, 14 January 2014

There is no genuine argument in favour of the UK remaining a member of the EU.

The EU-Lovers keep rolling out the same, bogus, arguments - instead of repeating the well known answers again and again, I thought I'l blog them here, all in one place.

1) Why do you hate Europe?
- I don't hate Europe, I love Europe. I hate the UK being under the power of political institutions of the European Union.

2) If UK leaves the EU, the EU will refused to trade with us, or make it very difficult and expensive.

- Under the Lisbon treaty, the EU is obliged to negotiate free trade agreements with any leaving member.

3) Despite their Lisbon treaty obligations they will put up trade barriers.

- As part of the World Trade Organisation there are yet more limits on barriers to trade. If the EU ignored its own treaty (as if!) they would be answerable to the Rest of the World, under their WTO obligations.

4) Despite all that they would put up trade barriers.

- The UK buys more from the EU than the EU buys from the UK, in any trade war, the UK would end up keeping loads of cash, and the EU would be left with unsold products.

5) We can't eat cash, we can't drive cash.

- But with cash we can buy from anywhere else in the world and/or we can use it to develop native/domestic manufacturing.

6) Even if they did negotiate a free trade agreement, the UK would end up having to conform to all EU laws/standards/regulations but not have any say over those laws/standards/regulations.

- For products exported to any country/area, they must (of course) meet that areas standards. This is an issue for exporters everywhere, already. It has no impact on any activity not related to export to that zone, nor the daily lives of citizens.

7) No, if it impacts trade, it will impact everyone.

- China, USA and the Rest of the World trade with the EU without needing to join it, nor to apply its rules/laws/standards other than to products specifically for export to the EU.

- UK trade with USA and China, we don't apply their rules/laws to everyone, just to the exported products/services.

8) Millions of UK jobs are dependent on the EU.

- Yes, millions may be dependent on the EU, but few are dependent on the UKs membership of the EU.

- Productive jobs in (say) trade, tourism etc will continue virtually unchanged.

- Unproductive overhead jobs (mainly political and bureaucrat) will disappear, 
saving the taxpayer millions of pounds in administrative overheads.

9) OK so why are we still members?

- Remember what I said about political and bureaucratic jobs? It is the people with those unproductive, comfortable, well paid jobs that keep us in, it is they who endlessly deny us a say.

10) But it that were true, they would know they couldn't keep the public in the dark for ever!

- They don't need to do it for ever, every year we stay in the EU, more and more of our wealth, resources, sovereignty are transferred to the EU, very soon now, it will be hugely expensive and complicated to leave the EU.

11) But the government have said that there are no more transfers to the EU - if there were we would have a referendum.

- That is what they said, but only if it required treaty changes. Existing treaties already allow for many more transfers, they have only scratched the surface of actually implementing the terms of the Lisbon treaty.

12) But we would see the transfers happening, it would be reported.

- Often no physical transfer is needed, the EU can expand its work in an area, while the UK runs it down. If the EU expands its embassies and the UK reduces its own then no physical transfer has occurred, but power has been silently transferred.

13) If the established political parties benefit from the EU - even though the people and country don't how can we ever escape?

- Vote UKIP, if UKIP win the 2015 election the UK will immediately start to terminate its membership of the EU.

14) OK!

First Published at http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/there-is-no-genuine-argument-in-favour.html
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