UKIP

[fisherman]

Nothing like a well argued and constructed argument is there:-)

[Théière]

And that was nothing like a well constructed argument [:P]

If you move to a foreign country and expect that there are enough of you to actually carry a vote in an election in a country you have left because rather than serving the people of that country it must serve just what you want, best think again. As for health care, you won't have any left once " I'll have a bare knuckle fight to save regional hospitals Dave" and his absolute shit Jeremy can't wait to sell you out for a few quid Hunt have scrapped health care as you know it in England.

 

[NormanH]

Which of course is a reason to hope the UK stays in a Europe that has some power to curb the excesses of the rabid right.

At least I can vote in Europe.

[NickP]

[quote user="NormanH"]Which of course is a reason to hope the UK stays in a Europe that has some power to curb the excesses of the rabid right.
At least I can vote in Europe.
[/quote]

You can also vote in France I believe, so If you choose to become resident in another country you can't really complain about not being able to vote in the old one. And before you say it,  I don't get a vote in France; but thats the deal I pay my dues on my house and spend my money in France, but no vote. So when the loony left that now run this country hit people like myself with  punitive penalties, we just have to grin and bear it.  So although I don't think for one minute the UK will separate from the EU, if the 60 million in the UK want that; and it's tough for you and the integrated so be it, that's democracy.

[Frederick]

I think membership of the EU  would be more accepted in the UK than it is today if people believed others were sticking to the rules. There is a belief that the UK plays by the laid down rules but pays into a system that is seen to be open season to be ripped off by others . The value of unaccounted for funds is billions .   This sort of thing of which there are many each year does not help :

Citrus fruit fraud detected by the Italian authorities together with OLAF

In 2004, OLAF was informed by the Italian authorities (Carabinieri) that large quantities of processed citrus fruit, allegedly sold by Italian manufacturers in other EU countries, were fictitious and therefore ineligible for EU compensation (for the withdrawing of fresh citrus fruit from the market).

The Italian authorities (Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza) in co-operation with OLAF conducted an investigation.

OLAF checked out the supposed buyers

and the addresses where the juice was supposed to have sold. In Spain

they found only apartment blocks, a museum and a car park and in France

a hardware store. Another supposed recipient of the concentrated juice

turned out to be a retired farmer, who had never received any such

juice from Italy.

OLAF concluded that all the

transactions relating to France and Spain listed in the Italian

operator' s accounts were totally non-existent.

Assets equivalent to €14.5 million have been seized to the fraudsters. The total loss to the EU budget is estimated at €50 million.

The financial and judicial follow-up of the case is continuing in partnership with OLAF's partners in Italy.

[Quillan]

See this 'Britain plays by all the rules' thing is a myth. One of the problems is that present and past governments either ignore rules or implement them making them look like they are their own when actually they are EU rules. Alternatively they get lobbied by industry to accept some rules and not others.

Car insurance for women for example, lobbied for by the insurance companies, strange how women's policies go up the full amount when they could have split the difference 50/50, a bit on for the women and a bit off for the men. Instead we have the insurance companies wringing their hands with glee having made a quick buck with little work.

Another typical example is sellers requiring to have their houses inspected for energy efficiency, this is a EU rule yet Blair and his mates made it seem like it was their idea. Ask for a lot, say it's not working then trim it down to the EU requirements and they get to look good.

Then there is this issue like we had in France over 'inactives' and them having to find private healthcare insurance or leave. This again is an EU rule but the UK has refused to implement it which if it did would get large public support especially from the DM and Express readers.

Lamp Bulbs are another, we know it makes sense to use low energy ones so implement the EU rules (extra VAT for the government on the bulbs and the manufacturers are over the moon, easy money) and when everyone starts jumping up and down because they can't buy 100w bulbs anymore they simply say "well it's not us it's the EU".

I am afraid the UK 'cherry picks' just like the best of them.

[idun]

Playing by the rules, well it always strikes me that EU rules get a quick, if not an automatic pass into UK law, where as in France, I certainly know of things in the past that were being held up by parliament. As they wanted to discuss them. They have eventually slipped into french law and in comparison, appeared to me, to be in a watered down form.

As always down to interpretation too, and how the french interpret these things should affect french life.

And can I think of an example, well not tonight I cannot.

 

I have looked but has anyone any figures of how much each EU country puts in each year per head. What the UK rebate is, and how much France gets for it's agriculture.

[YCCMB]

What often strikes me, and something I seldom seem to see in the UK, is that every tinpot little road widening scheme, roundabout, sewage works and any other building, road improvement or landscaping scheme I drive past in France seems to proclaim that it is being built with a contribution from some EU fund or another. I have never noticed a similar acknowledgement of the EU's largesse attributed to any UK projects. Is it that the UK doesn't ask, doesn't get or doesn't acknowledge such monies?

[NormanH]

It has certainly received them.

This is a completely random list of projects in the Anglesey area.

but  with a bit of navigating the same site you can get to the more general

http://wefo.wales.gov.uk/programmes/?lang=en

then in London https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/championing-london/london-and-european-structural-funds

And an evaluation in Scotland

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/support/17404/ESF-Evaluation-Publicity/EvaluationPlan2007to2013

I agree about the signposting of the fact that projects have been aided in France.

[Quillan]

I don't think the UK publicise on the side of roads how much the EU is contributed but I have seen it on motorway widening schemes in the UK. The cost per day in 2011 for being a member of the EU is around £41m gross but after rebate etc the nett is around £19m per day or £7.4bn per year. According the HM Treasury we spend around £21bn on trying to get the unemployed back to work (not including any unemployment benefits etc) so the EU costs us only around a third of that. We also spend annually around £88bn on education, £119bn on the NHS and out social payments (social security and state pensions) is around £190bn. Another way of looking at it is the interest cost as of October 2012 for the UK debt is £44.1bn per year so the £7.4bn per year it really costs us to be a member is not that much. Add to the the benefit to business which exports 40% to the EU of not having to pay import tax in those countries then financially it is not so bad. One interesting figure I came across when researching my answer was that the UK farmers get about £20M a year less (in 2011) than the French farmers according to the HM Treasury.

Scource. - A list of the annual treasury reports can be found HERE

[PaulT]

The EU one of those things whereby you can take a standpoint on one side and whereby someone else can take a standpoint on the other side, and of course an emotional issue.

Perhaps the UK do not put up signs showing how much the EU contributes to various schemes is so that politicians can claim that they have funded the full cost and take the credit for it. 

 

[Russethouse]

Q, it doesn't matter which way you cut it, everything I have read and heard, especially recently over the EU budget negotiations, leads me to believe that the UK give more than it gets back where as France gets out more than it pays in.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Q, it doesn't matter which way you cut it, everything I have read and heard, especially recently over the EU budget negotiations, leads me to believe that the UK give more than it gets back where as France gets out more than it pays in.[/quote]The UK is certainly a net contributor along with Germany, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy and surprisingly France. Apologies for any other contributor I have omitted. See this link for full details.

[Quillan]

Well RH that is true when you look at rebates and grants although depending which paper you read they will leave out the grants. What I am trying to put over that when you look at the nett figures then yes we still pay in more than we get out but the net cost is not as high as some would have.

My problem is that there is a lot of misinformation floating around and many people have already made their decision on how they are going to vote as they now have preconceived ideas. What I am saying is that the media should tell the whole story rather than scare people with only the bad bits.

It's a bit like the Irish Banks when they nearly went down and the UK put money in to help save them. People were saying things like "but they are in the Euro let the ECB sort them out". You didn't get the likes of the DM, The Express and the Murdoc papers explaining that we put money in because some of these banks were owned by UK banks and if they went down it would have a dangerous effect on UK banking possibly taking a couple of UK banks with them. Only the FT at the time went to the trouble of explaining this.

Likewise you can't say that Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal are in the same mess because each has different problems to the other although the the final result does mean they need bailouts. Each has failed for very specific reasons that are not the same as the others.

Perhaps a better way to calculate the amount a country pays is by charging a country per head of the working population, the more people you have working the higher your contribution but then that is the road to a federalised EU so at the moment it won't get off the starting blocks.

[idun]

I think trade agreements are fine, but the rest, well, I know where I stand.

 

 They tell the 'poor' countries to cut their budgets and yet the EU has not, even if the veto goes through it will automatically go up, and that is a fact. I have no time for the EU at all. I may have a little time for snippets of it, because, there must be some half decent things somewhere.

 

And when the EU budget is addressed, let's look at France's agricultural budget properly. It isn't as if it cannot be touched, it can, it should be.

[NormanH]

[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="Russethouse"]Q, it doesn't matter which way you cut it, everything I have read and heard, especially recently over the EU budget negotiations, leads me to believe that the UK give more than it gets back where as France gets out more than it pays in.[/quote]The UK is certainly a net contributor along with Germany, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy and surprisingly France. Apologies for any other contributor I have omitted. See this link for full details.[/quote]

A fascinating link Rabbie, not only on contributions but also on freedom of the press, equality of income, human development etc.

Surely the fact that as you say RH 'everything I have read leads me to believe' puts the finger on the problem?

The EU receives enormous negative publicity  in the UK orchestrated by special interest groups.

[powerdesal]

Try:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8036802.stm

[powerdesal]

''Add to the the benefit to business which exports 40% to the EU of not having to pay import tax in those countries then financially it is not so bad.''

Q, is that 40% before or after taking account of the ''Rotterdam Effect''?

I suspect it's before.

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"]''Add to the the benefit to business which exports 40% to the EU of not having to pay import tax in those countries then financially it is not so bad.'' Q, is that 40% before or after taking account of the ''Rotterdam Effect''? I suspect it's before.[/quote]

Its after, the pre "Rotterdam Effect" effect is around 60%.

[allanb]

[quote user="Quillan"]…the benefit to business which exports 40% to the EU of not having to pay import tax in those countries…[/quote]

Yes.  But you can have that benefit by means of a free trade area, without submitting to federal government or a common currency.

There was a time when that was the general objective, under the name of EFTA.  I wish it still was.

[Mac]

Interesting post. It seems to me that,with regard to EU membership.,it doesn't matter which side of the divide you are on-you can always find statistics to back up your side of the argument-and therein lies the problem.

[Théière]

Quite so Mac, unfortunately all those overheads employed to produce the stats and work out all the legal precedents must be paid so employment for some and costs for the rest of us.  Simply naive to believe that EU is a win win scenario.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="allanb"][quote user="Quillan"]…the benefit to business which exports 40% to the EU of not having to pay import tax in those countries…[/quote]
Yes.  But you can have that benefit by means of a free trade area, without submitting to federal government or a common currency.

There was a time when that was the general objective, under the name of EFTA.  I wish it still was.
[/quote]If you read some of the previous posts you will see that countries like Norway and Switzerland have signed up to follow EU rules without having any say in what those rules are. Doesn't seem to be the ideal situation to me.

[Quillan]

Switzerland is the 4th biggest trading partner with the EU but it's trade is mainly commercial services, basically banking and insurance. It also produces and exports drugs, machinery and watches. There are certain aspects of the Swiss economy that the EU cannot do without. Norway is also allowed to trade with the EU because again it has something the EU needs namely energy supplies i.e. gas and electricity. I found this article that breaks down UK exports to the EU and beyond. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/24/uk-trade-exports-imports  know its old but it gives some idea.

[allanb]

[quote user="Rabbie"]If you read some of the previous posts you will see that countries like Norway and Switzerland have signed up to follow EU rules without having any say in what those rules are. Doesn't seem to be the ideal situation to me. [/quote]

If you are Norway or Switzerland you can sign up for what you're happy with, and do without the rest – what's not ideal about that?