First let's begin with an important point. Being against the European Union doesn’t mean you hate Europe. The EU is an organisation that’s trying to increase its power, in the name of promoting unity in Europe.
For instance, you may well have voted in the 1974 referendum, held during Edward Heath’s government. If you did, you’ll remember that the choice back then was to become a part of a common European market… not the European Union as we know it today.
Britain chose to join a club based on free trade, only to find that the rules could be changed without our agreement… and that it’s nearly impossible to leave. What began as an amiable and beneficial trading accord has morphed into a proxy parliament… and now into a prison.
The illusion of freedom and democracy remains… but the reality of the EU has always been opposed to these values. The same is true across Europe. Take the Treaty of Lisbon. Its first incarnation was the EU Constitution in 2005.
The people of France rejected it. So did the Netherlands.
And then what happened? Did the EU respect the decision of the people?
Nope. The legislation was recycled into the Treaty of Lisbon, and passed in 2009.
The idea that an unelected organisation can reach into the heart of a sovereign state’s inner workings and DEMAND that the laws of the land change is reprehensible.
But that is what is laid out in the EU’s operating manual… a recent issue of the European Yearbook, published by the Council of Europe, states that:
The centre of decision of economic policy will be politically responsible to a European Parliament...
These transfers of responsibility represent a process of fundamental political significance…
Handing the control of your affairs to a stranger is a recipe for disaster… whether that’s the UK’s political leaders abdicating power to bureaucrats in Brussels, or you as an investor handing control of your money to someone else. It’s a bad idea either way.
The critical moment is right now…
Not once in the history of the EU has a nation like ours stood up and said we’d be better off outside of it.
That is what our referendum is: a challenge.
It’s a direct threat to the EU’s real agenda – which is to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of unelected elites.
That’s why our challenge terrifies them.
Right now, we’re at a critical stage. There is no way to maintain the status quo. We are at a fork in the road.
A ‘stay’ vote commits to the EU in ways we will never be able to undo. Over the years, it will continue to centralise power, like a black hole sucking everything towards itself, to strip us of our autonomy piece by piece.
A ‘no’ vote is the ultimate threat to the EU.
The EU already influences a minimum of 13% of British laws directly… and perhaps as many as 64%, depending on where you get your figures.
It already regulates certain foods, important financial matters, climate change rules, how many migrants can cross our border… and the list goes on. In fact, the 100 most burdensome regulations cost the UK £33 billion a year. It commandeers between £8 billion and £20 billion of taxpayer money – your money – every year.
No matter what our politicians say, a ‘stay’ vote gives the EU a mandate to reach across the channel and strip our nation of its sovereignty.
It happens with one little law… one obscure regulation… one indecipherable directive at a time… until, one day, in the near future, the ideas of freedom and liberty that Britain has stood by for centuries will have been destroyed.
It’s only then that people will wake up and realise what the EU really is: a blueprint for slavery.
The three ways the EU is gaining control
The EU may not openly control what Britain – or any other state – does, but it advances its agenda subtly… largely unseen… and without restriction. There are three particular methods the EU uses to increase its power. Remember, it’s all about control.
Control #1: the money
As any Greek, Cypriot, Portuguese or Irish citizen will tell you, debt forces nations to do things they’d never freely choose to do otherwise.
And it’s why the creation of the European Central Bank – and ultimately the Euro – has been vital in helping the EU acquire power, something Margaret Thatcher warned of in 1979:
“[In] that kind of Europe,” she said, “[there] is no democracy.” The point is “having a single currency, a monetary policy and interest rates which take all political power away from us.”
Thatcher was right then. But today, the EU’s control of the finances also affects you on a much more personal level.
For instance, did you know that at the start of 2016 the amount of money you have guaranteed in any UK bank dropped from £85k to £75k, entirely to bring it in line with EU ‘standards’?
It might seem innocuous now. But as the Cyprus “bail-in” showed, allowing the EU to dictate the financial laws and regulations between you, your bank and your government can have disastrous consequences.
Control #2: law making
Our elected Parliament should have the ultimate power to make laws in Britain.
The EU has turned that rule on its head.
The European Court of Justice asserts its own supremacy over and above the role of national parliaments. The UK’s parliamentary website explains:
“Provisions of EU law that are directly applicable or have direct effect, such as EU Regulations or certain articles of the EU Treaties, are automatically… incorporated and binding in national law without the need for a further Act of Parliament.”
This idea has been challenged in court in several nations across Europe. But the EU still asserts its own law-making supremacy above that of national member state parliaments.
Again, it did this without the people of the EU ever having the choice.
But it’s the third control that causes the greatest concern.
Control #3: the language
Vladimir Lenin once said: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Take the Treaty of Rome. If you’re unfamiliar with this, it’s generally seen as the official beginning of the EU in 1957 (or the European Economic Community, as it was known back then). It committed the states to “ever closer union among peoples.”
Those five innocuous-sounding little words gave generations of European elites the weapon they needed to keep pushing for more Europe, closer ties and more centralisation of power.
The EU charter nearly prevents any member nation from being able to leave without receiving approval.
Consider Article 50.2 of the Charter:
“A Member state which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.”
In other words, the rules state that we must negotiate our way out if we decide to leave the EU. That means we sit at a table with the European Council… and we cannot leave until they “agree” to terms acceptable to them.
In short, it means that even if we vote to leave, the European Union can dictate the TERMS we leave on.
In 2008, the people of Ireland clearly and decisively rejected the Treaty of Lisbon.
But again, instead of listening to the people’s choice and dropping the bill, the Irish were told to go back and do the vote again!
This time, in 2009, the ‘correct’ result came in.
That’s almost certainly what will happen if we vote to leave the Union. At first we’ll be told: “Go back and do it again.”
If that doesn’t work, the recriminations… sanctions… and heavy handed negotiations will begin.
What Brexit will do for the economy
A more entrepreneurial, less bureaucratic British economy should be good news for our economy.
But the reality, as Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics says, is that both the purported gains and losses from Brexit are overstated.
Even if the EU imposed tariffs on UK exports, “this 4% cost would be fairly easily absorbed” while any hit to EU trade would be offset “over the long-term by the extra opportunities to boost trade with emerging economies.”
There’s also the £10bn-odd in savings that the UK would make on its contributions to the EU.
A big player in the debate is Britain’s finance industry.
The City itself is split on our membership of the EU. And while the press tends to assume that they act out of self-interest, a vocal minority speaks from the heart.
For example, talking to hedge-fund manager Crispin Odey (an Outer), he’s less concerned with the impact on his business one way or the other, than with a desire to see British democracy fully restored.
But as far as the risk to the City goes, Michael Petley, chief executive of investment manager of the ECU group, points out that the City was 100 years or more in the making and has huge competitive advantages over potential post-Brexit rivals.
London is a world leader in accounting, financial technology, regulatory matters, banking and capital markets.
Petley reckons it would take 25 years to create a financial hub to replicate this. On top of that, London’s success has brought in hundreds of thousands of expatriates and their families from around the world.
A major financial centre needs schools, housing, hotels and an airline hub. The population is 8.5 million, but it touches a multiple of that each day. London is more than a city, it is a network – and that is irreplaceable.
Another big concern is trade.
The UK has a trade deficit with Europe – we buy more from them than they buy from us. So a trade war is no more desirable for Europe than it is for Britain.
And sure, new trade deals would have to be struck. But as Jonathan Lindsell of the Civitas think tank points out: “Swiss negotiators close more deals than the EU does, often with larger economies.”
Business for Britain has put together a detailed analysis of how a new trade deal with the EU could be pre-negotiated before any Brexit. The rest would quickly fall into place.
Steve Baker MP, head of Conservatives for Britain, notes that Britain is already a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Under these rules, Europe must offer us “most favoured nation” trading status. As a result, says Baker, “our membership of the WTO defrays even the worst-case scenario of trade barriers being erected under WTO rules if we left”.
More broadly speaking, global trade tariffs have been falling under globalisation.
Free trade benefits all involved, so it is in no one’s interests to reverse that. In any case, the EU promotes the trade in goods over services – it wasn’t built for Britain, a world leader in services. And overall, the EU is becoming less important in our overall trade mix.
The Office for National Statistics states that the EU’s share of global GDP has fallen from 30% in 1993 to 24% in 2013.
That reflects the growth of the emerging markets. The proportion of trade accounted for by the EU “has fallen consistently since 1999”, reports the ONS. In fact, as MEP Daniel Hannan points out, “Britain is the only EU state that sells more outside the union than to other members.”
Conclusion: we should go on alone
We do not hate Europe... but we don’t have to like the EU.
Winston Churchill believed in a united Europe.
He wanted to see the free movement of goods, capital and labour, and believed that free trade would bind nations together and create a lasting peace.
But as he once said, “if you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” Excessive rules feed a bulging bureaucracy; they don’t create a better European economy.
While the EU may have embraced free-market ideals early on, it has moved away from them.
The EU’s actions and structures drive its members towards a centralised social and political model, fed by high taxation.
In turn, that means that power will always flow towards and serve the interests of the biggest, most influential partners in the EU – Germany and France.
That attitude is holding back the rest of Europe, particularly those countries locked into the euro. That’s a great pity. But we don’t have to remain part of that.
There is no doubt that Britain would thrive alone.
The EU in its current form serves neither Britain nor Europe. It must undergo radical change. And if it can’t or won’t, then Britain should go it alone.
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