Thursday , March 28 2024

The transfer of power and wealth from London to Brussels must stop

We at the Leave Alliance don’t like to spend too much time focusing on number crunching when it comes to building a case for leaving the EU. All of this pointless hot air about how each British family can “save £933” isn’t going to get us anywhere. The figures are often dubious and it’s easy enough for the opposition to counter with another, equally dubious, figure and the public don’t know who to believe and disengage. In any case we are not going to convince people to vote to leave based on a few pounds and pence that they cannot verify; the fact is that immediately after Brexit ordinary people will feel no material difference (which, given everything that’s at stake beyond immediate economic concerns, is a major plus).

Still, sometimes figures do give some food for thought. I do wonder what could have been if the UK had avoided the historic mistake of entering the EU, as I said in my previous post, the economic slump and loss of self esteem that led to the surrender of our national independence was temporary. One can only wonder (pointlessly, I admit) what could have been if we had remained in the European Free Trade Association, and based our relationship with the EU purely on cooperation and trade, while retaining our own trade policy and further developing our global trade links and special relationships. We’d already be well ahead of the game in exploiting the rapidly emerging markets of the 21stcentury.

Instead we have spent forty years transferring the power and wealth of our country to the EU. It’s startling to think that the total UK contributions to the EU budget, after rebates, between the years 1973-2010 came to a total of £379 billion (calculated at 2010 values). That was 41% of the total national debt we had accrued by that year. How could we have used that money better? In so many ways; we have made ourselves immeasurably poorer for the dubious pleasure of being governed by the EU. It is a simple fact that we would still have had a strong trading relationship with the EU had we never entered – it isn’t credible to argue otherwise – so the ifs and buts of whether EU membership has benefited our economy are ludicrous in light of the unnecessary vast transfer of wealth from London to Brussels.

Businesses fall into insolvency because of a combination of bad strategic decisions, lack of foresight, the misspending of funds and carrying the burden of risky, unaffordable liabilities over a long period of time; with nations it is little different. As well as transferring wealth to the EU over time, we have also taken on huge liabilities that are out of our control. All EU Member States have joint and several liability for all EU debt, we a shareholding in the European Central Bank which will tie us into having to recapitalise the institution if it were to become insolvent, and we have liabilities in the European Investment Bank and EU rescue funds. In the event of another financial crisis the EU Bank Reconstruction strategy is to confiscate bank deposits as per the principles passed down by the G20 Financial Supervisory Board.

This is while EFTA countries have none of these burdening responsibilities, nor do they make payments into the EU general budget. If you want a relationship based on trade, vote to leave the EU and we can reinvigorate EFTA and make the Association a major global player.

Read The Market Solution – How we leave the EU in a de-risked, economically secure way.

This post was originally published by the author on 30 January 2016 http://thescepticisle.com/2016/01/30/the-transfer-of-power-and-wealth-from-london-to-brussels-must-stop/

About Ben Kelly

Ben Kelly is a Political writer, editor & #Brexit campaigner who resides in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. He is the Web Editor of Conservatives for Liberty and blogs in his personal capacity campaigning for Brexit at The Sceptic Isle.

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