Subject: Civitas says Britain must plan to leave the EU in 2014
Note - would someone - perhaps an MP - ensure that this is circulated to all MPs?
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http://www.civitas.org.uk/wordpress/
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prtimetosayno.htm press releaseBritain must plan exit strategy from failing EU, but should keep trade links
As Europe's leaders gamble their nations' finances on saving the Euro, a new Civitas report reveals that the European Union is damaging Britain's economic recovery and sapping job growth. Time to Say No, by Ian Milne, shows that a break with the EU need not represent a drastic break with Europe itself. Instead, it will permit a pragmatic reform of trade and immigration relations. Existing international institutions can achieve this without the current burdens of bureaucracy in the EU. It will also revive democracy at home.
The report argues that the British must rejoin the 95% of the global population that remain in countries outside the EU, such as the British Commonwealth nations. These countries have far better prospects for growth in the 21st century than many of the tired economies of mainland Europe:
The EU is in long-term structural demographic and economic decline. It also costs a fortune to belong to. UK withdrawal would result in the British people rejoining the 95 per cent of the world's population who live in self-governing states and successfully trade with each other-and with the EU-multilaterally. [p. 15]
The report sets out a timetable for an orderly withdrawal from the European Union. It begins in June 2014, following a national referendum on membership of the EU. After receiving the mandate to return to full sovereignty, the British Government would gradually reduce its contributions to the EU budget over a 24-month period. Milne proposes the temporary creation of a Ministry of EU Transitional Arrangements (META) to manage the process from beginning to end, ensuring that government departments are equipped to take over EU functions. [p. 19]
From June 2014, disputes between the European Court of Justice and British law would be mediated using an international dispute settlement procedure. At the end of the withdrawal process in 2016, British laws based on EU regulations would remain in place but could be repealed at the will of Parliament.
By June 2016, the UK would:
Milne sets out a number of alternative arrangements that would allow Britain to continue to co-operate in trade with the EU but on a more equal footing. They include:
As a result, there is nothing to fear, but a lot to gain, from re-establishing British sovereignty over the United Kingdom.For more information contact:
Civitas on 020 77996677Notes for Editors
i. Ian Milne is the Director of the cross-party think tank, Global Britain. His business career was in industry and merchant banking in the UK, France and Belgium.
ii. Time to Say No: Alternatives to EU Membership is available from the Civitas shop (RRP: £8.00) and by calling 020 7799 6677.
iii. National prosperity ranks are based on GDP per capita (PPP) as shown in the CIA World Factbook.
iv. Civitas is an independent social policy think tank. It has no links to any political party and its research programme receives receives no state funding. 
Time to Say No: Alternatives to EU Membership
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By Ian Milne
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Evidence is accumulating that membership of the EU imposes a heavy ongoing net cost on the UK economy possibly in excess of ten per cent of GDP, over £140 billion a year at 2009 prices. Long before the 2010 euro crisis a consensus existed (amongst member-state governments, the Commission itself, NGOs, business and academia) that in the decades to come continental EU s prospects, as a market and an economy, are dire. That consensus is strengthening. As much as 60 per cent of UK exports already go outside the EU, using the author s estimates for the effect of distortions on trade statistics. Since 2000 they have been growing almost 40 per cent faster than exports to the EU. Growth in export markets is almost certainly going to occur in the 95 per cent of global population outside EU-26, rather than in the five per cent inside EU-26. That being so, the UK s first priority ought to be to decide how its trading arrangements with the world outside the EU should be configured. That decision would condition the extent to which the UK s relationship with the EU Single Market should be changed. Full withdrawal would be one of the options. The author examines these and other questions in some detail, including the three main alternatives (for the UK) to EU membership. He concludes by sketching out the mechanics, timetable, management and consequences of full UK withdrawal.Product Details
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About the Author
Ian Milne has been the Director of the cross-party think-tank Global Britain since 1999. He was the founder-editor (in 1993) of The European Journal, and the co-founder (in 1995) and first editor of eurofacts. He is the translator of Europe s Road to War, by Paul-Marie Coûteaux, and the author of numerous pamphlets, articles and book reviews, mainly about the relationship between the UK and the European Union. His most recent publications are A Cost Too Far? (Civitas, July 2004), an analysis of the net economic costs and benefits for the UK of EU membership; Backing the Wrong Horse (Centre for Policy Studies, December 2004), a review of the UK s global trading arrangements and options for the future; and Lost Illusions: British Foreign Policy (The Bruges Group, December 2007), which assesses UK foreign policy since 1945 and suggests how it could become more effective. He graduated in engineering from Cambridge University and in business administration from Cranfield. His business career was in industry and merchant banking in the UK, France and Belgium.
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Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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