Britannia Radio

Freedom In The News - December 3rd 2010

Just Another Reason Britain Would Be Better Off Out The European Union

The Daily Mail has the news that the IMF is to double its bailout fund in anticipation of investor breakdowns of confidence in Portugal and Spain. The Daily Mail's city editor writes 'The International Monetary Fund expects to double its lending resources to $450billion (£288billion) in the coming weeks, putting it in a strong position to assist the European Union in resolving the current eurozone turbulence.'

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European Central Bank

The Daily Telegraph reports that the ECB has bowed to German pressure on mass bond purchases. This news is likely to mean that the German government does not have confidence in bonds from Southern European states. The Telegraph articles reports: 'Some credit market analysts had speculated that the ECB might launch a blitz of €1 trillion to €2 trillion of debt purchases, but this was never likely at this stage. Such action is anathema to Germany.'

WikiLeaks

The Guardian has uncovered another sensational cable. This time, the US embassy sent a cable to the State Department labelling former PM Gordon Brown as 'abysmal'. The article goes on to say 'In a scathing assessment of the former prime minister, George Bush's last ambassador to London blamed Brown for presiding over a "post-Blair rudderlessness" which prompted senior Labour figures to complain of their despair to the embassy.'

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.