Out
"ooh, the EU has been nice and given us £40 million towards our tidal energy project which couldn't proceed without EU finding".
We pay them £53million a day. If we were out of the EU we could afford a new project like that daily. Just think if we weren't in the EU, we could have used the money to pay for schools and hospitals and not have gone down the PFI route to afford them. Then the NHS would not be in the situation it is in, but would actually be making around £2 billion surplus.
Also, the contribution we make to the EU (which is basically going to prop up and repair broken ex Soviet countries) makes the savings we're trying to make in our domestic budget pale into insignificance. Right now, all orders on stationary are banned in the hospital I work at. We have to buy our own pens, post it notes, etc.
We'd be in a much better situation if it wasn't for the EU. The rest of the world that we should be trading with don't care about EU membership when it comes down to conducting business and trading. It's also a lot easier to do business over the phone and e-mail when the other person speaks English - actual physical distance means little these days.
The growth is in the Commonwealth countries and the rest of the English speaking world which whom we are banned from making trade deals with thanks to the EU. Also at World Trade Organisation meetings, the UK (6th biggest economy, 5th biggest trading nation) is asked to leave the room during many discussions as we are represented by an unelected, EU bod. Not a representative of our elected government.
I also question the democratic legitimacy of the EU 'president' who has executive authority without a mandate from the 500,000,000 people he doesn't represent.
I also question the need for an EU army, navy and airforce when it supposedly has peaceful intentions. NATO does all that shit. It's just them grabbing more and more power and I for one am concerned (and sickened) about someone like Herman Van Roumpoy having access to a military. The EU has member states which have military capabilities which can (and are) used for EU objectives. I would not oppose creating a central command and control centre which can integrate the capabilities of all the member states military assets in case they are needed to work together on a large scale. I do oppose the idea of these people who actually shun democracy (2 x referendums ignored, those who call for a referendum or for a review of the democratic process within the EU being called "extreme populists") having direct control over a military.
The EU is so close to the Soviet Union it is scary (there are ex communists running it, yes names are available on request) and whilst communism had very good intentions, ultimately it was corrupt and killed millions of its own people.
So I'd say out.
