The European Union is costing us more each day

First topic message reminder :

EU membership now £50m a day
Wednesday, 23rd November 2011

UKIP analysis of the latest figures contained in The Pink Book 2011 (UK's Balance of Payments) clearly show that the UK now sends in excess of £50million every day in contributions to the European Union.

Figures released today for 2009/2010 show that the UK's gross contributions have increased by 5.7%

Gross receipts (payments from Brussels to the UK) shrank between 2009 and 2010. Part of the reason for this was Tony Blair's surrender of the UK's rebate from the EU.

Our net contribution to the EU has rocketed from £6.6billion in 2009 to £10.3billion in 2010.

Last year the Office for Budget Responsibility envisaged £10.3billion as the annual cost of EU membership for 2014. These new figures show that they have grossly underestimated the cost to the UK of EU membership.

The Pink Book 2011 is a summary of balance of payments accounts, which contain detailed statistics for the current account including; trade in goods and services, income, current and capital transfers, transactions in UK external assets and liabilities, and levels of identified assets and liabilities.

Numbers contained in The Pink Book are higher than those from HM Treasury because not all UK payments to and from Brussels transit via HM Treasury. For example, the Department for International Development channels part of its 'overseas aid' direct to institutions by-passing HM Treasury.

Nigel Farage, UKIP Leader, said: "The figures speak for themselves. We are paying more than ever before for our EU membership and are getting less in return.

"This news is a kick in the teeth for the British people who are tightening their belts in these tough times.

"David Cameron has ignored the will of the people by denying them a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU, and now these figures will just rub salt in the wounds. How can the Prime Minister still say it is within our interests to remain in the EU?"

It will surely be a welcome element of the proceedings : there will be Cameron , irritated beyond measure by Farage's presence; then there will be Clegg , seeking to deny in the face of Cameron that he ever wanted to be part of the dirty dealings which the Coalition have inflicted, while the puffed-up Farage himself waxes lyrical in a manner which will make him look like the ultra-Tory complete prat which he so obviously is.

That just leaves the helpfully-detached Ed Miliband, who will, accordingly, have every opportunity to show Britain just why he and his sparkling Opposition are the chaps for the job. He will take his chance...... won't he.....?

Phil. The picture you portray is of three right-wingers in any discussion plus Ed Miliband, which hardly sounds balanced. The BBC has helped to create the UKIP monster, partly by putting Farage on ‘Question Time’ thirteen times in just over three years, more than any other individual.

But let’s not forget that UKIP has no MPs at Westminster, controls no councils and in the last general election secured 3% of the vote. The Green Party, which has an MP and runs Brighton Council, is, in my opinion, far more entitled to a place in any discussions than the bumptious Farage.

What's wrong with right wingers? UKIP according to the polls has a higher % of the voters wanting them nationally than the Greens so why shouldn't they be on the TV, as I understand it they're even nicking labour voters as they're the only party that recognise the problems facing the country.

tlttf. Good to see you here, at least because it nails the lie that you had been permanently banned.

So you think that the right to take part in a debate should depend on the latest opinion polls, do you? Presumably if UKIP drop a few percentage points with YouGov then they would lose that right, at least until a more favourable poll appears? That’s just nonsense.

The criteria used for the 2010 debates was that the leaders had to represent UK-wide parties (ruling out the SNP and Plaid Cymru) which were represented in Parliament. That meant just the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems (with 62 MPs before the last election) were eligible. If that rule applies again, UKIP has no eligibility. The debates are about forming the UK government, and UKIP has no MPs at Westminster. It doesn’t even control any councils. I don’t advocate opening up the debates to the Green Party, but it has more eligibility to take part, since at least it has an MP.

Your tired cliché that UKIP is “the only party that recognise the problems facing the country” is just laughable. Leaving the EU in order to protect bankers’ bonuses and make it easier to scrap employment rights will not help this country, neither will bringing back foxhunting and smoking in pubs. Restricting immigration is already damaging cash-strapped universities, while doubling the prison population and spending 40% more on defence - at the same time as dropping the top rate of tax to 31% - is economic lunacy. But if you really want to defend UKIP’s crap policies, this isn’t the thread on which to do it, try this one:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t799-is-it-time-that-we-took-a-closer-look-at-ukip

QUOTE: ".... Restricting immigration is already damaging cash-strapped universities...."

Oh, but they think they've got that covered!

IMMIGRANTS would be forced to bid thousands of pounds to secure visas under controversial proposals by a group of Tory MPs to control the number of people coming to Britain.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1268200.ece

But don't we want to discourage the rich foreigners from settling in London and inflating property values?
I thought the point of immigration was to add to the workforce (especially people from poor countries who will work for peanuts)
Tories could be shooting themselves in the foot with this proposal - plus, unlikely to help the Universities

Strangely enough boatlady apparently universities are over prescribed at the moment by 7%. Allowing immigrants to work for less than the minimum wage puts to bed the labour lie to "a living wage", how is allowing somebody from a different country to take jobs from local unskilled workers good. Weird world innit.

IMF's euro swindle

The IMF yesterday confirmed one of the world’s worst kept secrets: it deliberately bent its own rules to bail out the Greek economy because it wanted to help shore up the euro.

As the Mail argued at the time, the £93billion rescue package – which included £1billion from the UK taxpayer – was a shocking abuse of the IMF’s remit.

Its role is to help countries that lack the economic means to survive – not to prop up the failing Franco-German euro ideology so beloved of the IMF’s boss, the scandal-hit ex-French finance minister Christine Lagarde.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2337193/EPHRAIM-HARDCASTLE-Labour-Eds-dont-it.html

Oh do try to find something else to quote from - Daily Mail is OK, but only one version of the facts and strongly coloured by right wing bias - as you know very well

tlttf wrote:-
Strangely enough boatlady apparently universities are over prescribed at the moment by 7%.

Any evidence to support that assertion? No, I thought not.

If university courses are oversubscribed (we’ll leave the prescribing to doctors), it’s because so many courses were cut when fees were trebled. ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported a record fall in university applications for this coming October: “In total 145,000 applications were received for all courses at UK universities by November 2012. This compares with more than 180,000 at the same stage in 2010, the year before the introduction of the new fees regime.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9708905/Record-fall-in-UK-university-applications-for-2013.html

However, ‘The Guardian’ reported a 4.9% rise in applications to UK universities from EU countries, and a 9.6% rise from countries outside the EU.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jan/30/university-applications-subjects-age-gender-country

It seems that increasing numbers of foreigners, but fewer British citizens, can afford to go to our universities. However, if I’ve understood correctly, UKIP’s plan to stop all immigration to the UK for at least five years, regardless of what damage that might do to the economy, would cover foreign students as well. If so, it's just another example of the ill-thought-out, crackpot policies of that ridiculous party.

Here we go again, well it makes me smile.

EU must be joking: EC clamps down on fraud
Theresa May has agreed with the EC on proposals to prevent fraud against the EU. The problem is that no one seems to care about the EU’s own fraud and incompetence

Simon Miller
On 7 June 2013 16:14

Fresh from its latest attempt at destroying London as a world financial centre with its grab at the Libor, the European Commission had a tête-à-tête with Justice and Home Affairs Ministers about financial crime committed against the European Union.

Read the article and take a reality check.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3744/eu_must_be_joking_ec_clamps_down_on_fraud

tlttf. You take your own "reality check".

Fraud can occur in any organisation, large or small, because not everyone is honest. It's no reason to disband the organisation, and in most cases, it may not be a reason to leave it, just to reform it. The negativity about the EU that you enjoy plastering on this site is purely the result of prejudice. You've decided that the EU is 'bad', so you grub around for every morsel that appears to discredit it.

All you're demonstrating is that you've been brainwashed by years of tabloid anecdotes and that you fail to see what's going on. The far right want to make it easier to scrap human rights; the European Court of Human Rights falls under the jurisdiction of the Council of Europe, but if we left that we'd probably have to leave the EU as well. They also want to make it easier to scrap employment rights, and they want to protect City bonuses. The idea that a bonus might be restricted to just one year's salary caused outrage from Cameron and Boris Johnson and sent them rushing off to Brussels. That's the agenda that you've allowed yourself to be duped into supporting.

I call it fraud when the leader of UKIP takes £2 million in expenses from the EU, yet he has the fifth worst attendance record out of 754 MEPs. Presumably you think that's okay, because public school City toff Farage is so different from other politicians, isn't he?

Maybe, if there is a lot of fraud and corruption in the EU (I don't know) the likes of Nigel Farage and other MEP's should be being a bit more proactive in attending debates, committees etc in order to challenge corruption where it arises, rather than taking huge amounts of expenses in exchange for campaigning against the very organisation that gives them their political platform and a very generous living?

Lets get out of the EUSSR while we still have a bit of money left. Who in their right head wants to stay in an institution that looks continuously for new ways to steal from the working man/woman?


Card fees to be introduced for British customers following EU rule change

As
hidden fees for transactions look set to be scrapped, Mastercard tells
customers the cost will be passed on to them
Adam Withnall

Tuesday 02 July 2013

British customers will be hit with charges on new debit and credit cards if a proposed European Union rule is allowed to come into force, transaction firm Mastercard has warned.

The rule is supposed to clamp down on the fees taken by Mastercard and Visa every time a transaction is made using their cards, but these firms say their losses will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

That could mean a fee of £11 for every new debit card, and as much as £25 for credit cards, as the international companies look to cover estimated losses of £2.4 billion.


http://www.independent.co.uk/money/loans-credit/card-fees-to-be-introduced-for-british-customers-following-eu-rule-change-8683388.html

Cash is King - and untraceable.

Why should anyone choose to allow their Bank to possess a tracking device which records everything they buy and everywhere they go?

.... and how difficult they find it to repay.

tlttf wrote:-
Who in their right head wants to stay in an institution that looks continuously for new ways to steal from the working man/woman?

130,000 Tory Party members maybe?  
 
I see that the EU is such a terrible organisation that a 28th country joined it yesterday. But I suppose Croatians are all just ‘Johnny Foreigners’ who don’t understand anything, are they? In the meantime, your case for leaving the EU now seems to be based on a debit and credit card renewal charge which might come into force one day!
 
A week ago, I was in Strasbourg for one night (not much chance of seeing Farage there, bearing in mind his attendance record). I used a credit card three times – in a supermarket, in a restaurant and to pay a hotel bill. I’ve checked online and to each transaction has now been added a 'non-sterling' fee of 2.75%.
 
According to your article, “the UK Office of Fair Trading has supported the European Commission, which believes the so-called ‘interchange fees’ charged to both customers and retailers are in violation of legal and ethical rulings on transparency”. So in future, non-sterling transaction fees, such as the ones I will be paying, could disappear, but there might be a charge for having the card instead. And is that supposed to make us rush out and support UKIP, which seems to have no price-cutting proposals?
 
Before making any more knee-jerk reactions to a non-story, I suggest you return to the article and study some of the informed reader comments beneath it. Here are a couple of them:-
 
“The EU is proposing to reduce transaction charges - applied every time a card is used - for the ultimate benefit of consumers throughout the 28 member countries.”
 
“This is just the sort of thing we need the EU to meddle with. Who else can stand up to companies the size of Visa and Mastercard? You don't seriously think chain-smoking, pint-swilling, bankster-loving Nigel Farage would stand up to the usurers do you? He is one of their own. The banksters are funding UKIP!”
 
Is it time for you to go back to the drawing board?

Ok then Ivan, the bank no longer charges the company a transaction fee (easy bit). Do you seriously believe that the company your spending your money in will reduce their price and pass on the savings (easy no). So you pay the same amount and the company gains because they don;t pay a transaction fee. Meanwhile the card holder ends up paying a yearly fee for using the card (debit or credit). That would be me paying extra for buying the same item. Now I'm not sure about your drawing board but on mine that's a lose, lose, lose scenario. I'm sure you think it's a beneficial cost to yourself, me I think it's a rip off.

Lets see if Croatia is a net payer or a net receiver Ivan. If I joined a club and had to pay £100 to join (not a real figure) and then the club allows me to spend £1,000 because I'm a member it's a good deal. Is Britain getting the same deal?

Lets get out now, it's past it's sell by date and consumes too much to make it feasible anymore.

tlttf. Until last year, I found that you often received a better rate of exchange if you paid by credit card when abroad. It was also usually best to conduct the transaction in the local currency if given the choice. Since last year, Mastercard has spoiled that by adding a 2.75% “non-sterling transaction fee” every time one of their cards is used abroad.
 
A few points to note:-
1. According to your article from ‘The Independent’, the idea of an annual fee for having a credit card is only a proposal, it may never come into force.
2. Our Office of Fair Trading is supporting the European Commission on this proposal, so maybe the ‘blame’ should be laid a bit nearer home?
3. If a credit card fee of £11 a year replaced Mastercard’s “non-sterling transaction fee”, anyone spending more than £400 a year on their card while abroad would be better off.
4. If we were using the same currency as other countries that we visit in Europe, there couldn’t be any “non-sterling transaction fees”, but I’m not advocating joining the euro.
5. Annual credit card fees were tried about 20 years or so ago. The TSB refused to impose them, lots of people switched to them, and so the other banks withdrew their fees.
 
You can hardly claim that the EU is “past its sell-by date” when it’s still growing. I doubt if Croatia will receive anywhere near ten times what it pays in, but you make me think of that old cliché about knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. I don’t think you can put a price on our membership of the biggest free trade area in the world. I don’t think you can quantify the effects of American companies basing themselves in the UK so that they can gain free access to that market, and what might transpire if we left it.
 
Until about a year ago, I was a ‘don’t know’ when it came to the EU, as can be seen on some of these threads. I still don’t support its line on austerity, but I do think it provides a degree of protection for the employment rights of our workers. It seems that it’s because of those rights that right-wing Tories and UKIP want to leave the EU, and that they also want to make it easier to protect the bonuses of City bankers. In short, right-wing politicians have convinced me that staying in the EU is by far the safest option in an increasingly globalised world, and I’ve yet to hear a decent reason for leaving. What may or may not happen to my credit card certainly isn’t that reason.

The Business view:

"British business: We need to stay in the European Union - or risk losing up to £92bn a year
Richard Branson and Martin Sorrell among signatories to a letter to ‘The Independent’ that takes aim at Eurosceptics."


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-business-we-need-to-stay-in-the-european-union--or-risk-losing-up-to-92bn-a-year-8622925.html

EU rules will still be 'foisted' on Britain if we leave
 
Norway is not a member of the EU but is part of the single market through the European Economic Area Agreement. In return for its membership of the EEA, Norway pays more than £560 million a year, but has no say in any EU decision making.
 
The Swiss have a free trade agreement, which is based on 120 bilateral agreements. It would take Britain time to create a similar labryinth of agreements, which would leave businesses facing a lengthy period of uncertainty. Even if similar agreements were put into place, they would give Britain only limited flexibility.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10160083/EU-rules-will-still-be-foisted-on-Britain-if-it-leaves-Europe.html

Not since the withdrawal of The Romans 1500 years ago has anyone succeeded in uniting Europe. There may be a message there.

This is part of what the Polish Foreign Secretary, Radek Sikorski, had to say about British Eurosceptics last year:-
 
“Some want out but not entirely. By replacing membership with a negotiated free trade agreement, they argue that the UK will be better off. Because Britain’s market is too valuable for the rest of the continent to ignore, they say, the British government could negotiate a trade deal that would preserve all the advantages of membership in the single market, without any of the political and financial costs.

My answer to that is: don’t count on it. Many European states would hold a grudge against a country which, in their view, had selfishly left the EU. While you are an important market for the rest of the EU, accounting for about 11% of the rest of the EU’s trade, your trade with the EU is 50% of your total trade. No prizes for guessing who would have the upper hand in such a negotiation.

Any free trade agreement would have a price. In exchange for the privilege of access to the Single Market, Norway and Switzerland make major contributions to the EU’s cohesion funds. They also have to adopt EU standards – without having any say in how they are written. At the moment, Norway’s net contribution to the EU budget is actually higher, per capita, than Britain’s.

So think hard: the EU is a market of 500 million people who enjoy the highest average standard of living in the world. According to the IMF and the World Bank, Europe’s GDP is about 2.5 times than that of China and nine times that of India. Do you want to lose your privileged access to that market?”
 
For the entire article:-
http://www.msz.gov.pl/resource/ff80e9c3-19f6-460c-9921-c73bbb089c54:JCR

Occasionally referred to as "Cutting your nose off to spite your face." Human nature is very reliable.

Austerity for some!!!


Euro MPs seek to plunder £48m more from our pockets
EURO MPs provoked fury last night by demanding an extra £48.5million from taxpayers.
By: Macer Hall
Published: Sat, July 13, 2013

The European Parliament called for a massive 3.3 per cent hike in its annual budget next year to a total of £1.6billion.

Some of the cash is already earmarked for a museum of European history and an exhibition about Euro MPs in Brussels.

The huge demand comes despite David Cameron and other EU leaders agreeing a real-terms cut in overall spending over the next seven years.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/414519/Euro-MPs-seek-to-plunder-48m-more-from-our-pockets?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-uk-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed%29

The few people who have tried to slow the Brussels gravy-train were all thrown off it.

Perhaps we should ask why the equally expensive Westminster organism is allowed to continue in parallel.

The European Parliament called for a massive 3.3 per cent hike in its annual budget

tlttf. Thanks for another yawn of a story. Is that sordid piece of crude propaganda supposed to make us all support UKIP and far-right Tory headbangers? In your dreams. The European Parliament has asked for some more money. So what? It doesn’t mean it will get it.
 
The only significant thing about that pathetic article is its appallingly hyped-up emotive language. “Demand”, “fury”, “plunder”, “huge”. As we’re told that the claim is for 3.3%, we don’t need to be indoctrinated with the word “massive”; can’t we be allowed to make our own judgement? In most people’s view, 3.3% is not massive. 50% is massive, the sort of bonus that bankers get – you know, those bankers who Cameron and Boris Johnson rushed off to Brussels to support when a cap on bonuses was being discussed.
 
I really feel sorry for you if you can’t find anything better than that unmitigated trash to read. It’s no wonder that your postings are so dreary, so loaded with half-truths or lies and so superficial.

Ivan, when I need to read unmitigated trash, guess whose posts I read?

British exporters are suffering from the fact that half of their business is with Europe, which shows nil growth over the past twelve months. Even Germany has declared less growth than the UK's published figures.

The Victorians enjoyed a story about the Duke of Wellington being addressed by an individual in Hyde Park, "Mr. Smith, I believe?" To which the Duke responded, "If you can believe that, you can believe anything."

The modern history of Singapore may be what Brexiteers are dreaming of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore

The European Union is currently litigating against Google for unfair preference of its own comparison site.

Trump appears to be about to zap Syria again. Is there a message for Brussels there?

Maybe the title of this UKIP-instigated thread should be changed to 'Leaving the European Union is costing us more each day'?

Surviving hard Brexit will require sacrifices not seen since the Second World War

In reality the only sensible way to make the UK a success is by another dose of full-on free market economics. In the short term that means unemployment; depressed wages because of more, not less migration; scrapping the living wage; no increase in public sector pay and tax breaks for corporations.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-david-davis-free-trade-migration-labour-laws-low-taxes-a7845421.html

Leaving the EU "risks imperilling the very health of the nation"

Jay Rayner, the son of the late Claire Rayner, is a British journalist, feature writer, restaurant critic and jazz musician. He’s written a book called ‘A Greedy Man in a Hungry World’, which is about food sustainability.

Rayner was asked recently if he would speak at a round table discussion on 25 July to provide “food for thought” for the Murdoch stooge Michael Gove, who is now the environment secretary. He declined the offer and published this open letter in response:-

“After much hard thought, I have concluded I am just not grown up enough to play the game of British politics and sit in a room with a man of whom I think so little. Yes, he may have done good by bringing in free school meals while at education. Yes, he made positive moves while at justice. But since then he has disgraced himself. He was one of those who continued the £350 million-a-week EU lie and led us down the disastrous path to the utter folly of Brexit. He has been revealed to be a plotter and a conniver and all-round rather nasty piece of work. No, I cannot sit in a room with him and make talk, small, large or otherwise. Sorry. I’m just not that guy.”

Rayner also pointed out that Gove was one of the chief campaigners to leave the European Union, a move that will, in his opinion, cause large scale issues for our food supply chain.

He finished his reply as follows:-

“I find it extraordinary that, in the correspondence inviting me to the meeting of food experts called by you, your colleague Fiona Gately said that Brexit would not be part of the discussion. She later retracted that verbally; said it was of course something we could discuss. The point I made to her then and I make now is that, where our food supply is concerned, Brexit is the only subject. It is implicated in every single aspect of our food supply chain and risks imperilling the very health of the nation."

https://www.indy100.com/article/michael-gove-jay-rayner-sarah-vine-7856676

Rather well expressed and sensible opinion there - I don't enjoy his literary style, but I think he has his critique of Gove spot-on and his view of the effect of Brexit on food supply

An article in the Financial Times (pay-wall) uses the acronym BEANO ( A Brexit existing in name only ) to describe a probably indefinite settlement.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/brexit-in-name-only-and-the-politics-of-transition/ar-AApedzM?li=BBx1bGE&ocid=mailsignout

(That is to say, it may never happen).

Is this the first sign of "things to come", or just more fake news from the Daily Wail?

It's also in the Express - must be true ;-)

What more proof could any voter ask?

Leaving the European Union is costing us more each day.......

A million skilled EU workers see their future outside Britain

Almost a million EU citizens working in Britain – many of them young, highly qualified and much sought-after by businesses – are either planning to leave the country or have already made up their minds to go as a result of Brexit, a study has found. A survey of 2,000 EU workers in Britain by KPMG, the professional services firm, found that 55% of those with PhDs and 49% of those with postgraduate degrees were either planning to go or were actively considering it.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/27/million-skilled-eu-workers-planning-to-leave-uk-brexit

Golden Oldie:

"Will the last person to leave please switch off the light?"