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| Vote leave, be free again |
1) We’d get our money back
Some of your taxes go the European Union. Some, but not all, of that money comes back to Britain in subsidies to farmers, grants to universities and so on. How much? In 2015, our gross contribution was almost £18 billion, but a budget “rebate” won my Margaret Thatcher in 1984 reduced that to £13 billion, around £200 per person in Britain. The Treasury says around £6 billion comes back to the UK in subsidies and grants, meaning our net EU payments are worth a little over £100 per head. In cash terms, Britain is the second biggest contributor to the EU budget after Germany.2) We could decide who comes into our country
EU members must allow all EU citizens to enter their country and work without restrictions. The “right of free movement” has allowed hundreds of thousands of Europeans to live and work in Britain. In the 12 months ending in September 2015, an estimated 257,000 EU nationals arrived in the UK. The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are more than 2 million EU nationals working in the UK. |
3) We could make our own laws again
Some British laws are passed and implemented because of decisions made at an EU level. Business For Britain, a pro-Leave group, reckons 65 per cent of new British laws are made in Brussels. The House of Commons Library says that between 1993 and 2014, a total of 231 Acts of Parliament were passed because of EU membership, 24 per cent of the total. In 2010, the UK government estimated that about 50 per cent of UK legislation with “significant economic impact” originates from EU legislation.4) Our courts would have the final say over those laws
When Britain joined the EEC in 1972, Parliament accepted that European law could have primacy over UK law. That law is ultimately overseen by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The court’s power has grown steadily, and the Lisbon Treaty gave it power over 135 areas of criminal justice policy; Britain has opted out of all but 35 of those measures, but participates in the European Arrest Warrant scheme, which gives the court the right to order EU nationals (including Britons) be extradited to face trial elsewhere in the EU. |
5) We wouldn’t have to accept decisions forced on us by other countries
Many EU decisions are taken under “qualified majority voting” rules, where countries’ voting weights depend on their size. That means countries can be outvoted, forced to accept decisions with which they disagree. Britain is outvoted more often than any other country. Between 2009 and 2015, Britain was on the losing side of 12 per cent of QMV decisions. By contrast, France was on the losing side of less than 1 per cent of votes. The areas where Britain was most often outvoted included the EU budget and EU foreign and security policy.6 )We wouldn’t have to listen to lots of European presidents
The EU is not a country but it has no fewer than five presidents. Donald Tusk is president of the European Council, the group comprised of EU heads of state and government. Jean Claude Juncker is president of the European Commission. Martin Schulz is president of the European Parliament. Mario Draghi is president of the European Central Bank. Jeroen Dijsselbloem is president of the Eurogroup of countries using the single currency. They wrote a report last year calling for much greater integration of the euro countries, another step on the road to a superstate. |
7) We wouldn’t have to listen to, or fund, the European Commission
The European Commission is more than the EU's civil service. It also has the right to propose new laws and regulations. It employs around 23,000 officials. In 2011, a think-tank estimated that more than 10,000 Commission staff were paid more than £70,000.8) We could have proper vacuum cleaners
Under an EU regulation that took effect in 2014, vacuum cleaners with the most powerful motors (1,600 watts and above) are banned. The European Commission says the ban will save energy and encourage more efficient devices. Which?, a consumer group, says it prohibits some of the best machines currently being made. Sir James Dyson, the British industrialist, says the efficiency rules were skewed to favour German vacuums over his products. |
9) We wouldn’t have to worry about Turkey
The EU wants to grow even bigger. There are five official candidate countries: Turkey, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania. To get in, each has to adopt all EU rules and political standards, then “accession” has to be approved by the leaders and parliaments of every EU member. The Commission says there's no prospect of any new members before 2020; many European politicians believe Turkey will never qualify, though both sides say they are committed to its entry.10) We could set our own tax rates
The EU wants to “harmonise” the rate of VAT and the goods to which it applies. VAT must be at least 15 per cent but can be cut to 5 per cent on certain specified items. EU-wide consent is needed for any changes, which is why George Osborne needs European permission to reduce VAT on tampons and sanitary towels. |
11) We could support British companies in trouble
EU single market rules discourage governments from giving financial support to private companies, to make sure “national champions” do not have a commercial advantage over rivals. Those rules meant that ministers couldn’t directly bail out Tata Steel’s UK plants.12) Fish!
The EU’s common fisheries policy attempts to manage and share EU fish stocks by giving each nations’ fishermen quotas for what they can catch. Critics say that forces up prices for consumers, forces fishermen to dump millions of dead fish back in the sea, and decimates national fishing fleets.13) We could get rid of windfarms
Wondering where all those wind turbines come from? Brussels, of course. EU members have agreed to increase the share of their electricity generated from “renewable” sources. By 2020, Britain is supposed to get 15 per cent of its power this way and could in theory face legal action if that target is missed.14) We could have blue passports again
Your passport is red because Britain is in the EU, and EU members have standardised their passports, and agreed that “European Union” is the first thing written on the cover. The red passport replaced the old blue document in 1988. |
15) And our own entry lanes at airports
Remember when you came back from holiday and there was an entry lane marked UK PASSPORT HOLDERS? It’s not there any more because EU rules oblige members to treat all EU nationals in the same way, so Britons have to queue up with their fellow Europeans when they want to come back into their own country.16) We wouldn't have to fund EU foreign aid
The EU has its own foreign aid programme to give away your money. In 2013, it spent almost €15 billion (£11.8 billion) on foreign aid, almost exactly as much as the UK Government.17) It would be easier to get rid of fridges
The EU has a say in how you dispose of white goods through Directive 2012/19/EU. Before the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive came in, you could dispose of your fridge in your local landfill to be destroyed by a giant metal crusher. But now fridges are deemed hazardrous, so have to be disposed of safely in special closed units ("approved authorised treatment facilities"). This has spawned a new industry disposing of Britain's old fridges, and irritated a lot of householders. |
18) No more stupid recycling bins
Local councils’ drive to get you to recycle more of your rubbish is partly driven by the EU. The European Commission wants much less rubbish to go to landfill, and its Landfill Directive sets tough targets for councils. As a result, the UK Government imposes heavy fines on councils for landfill use, adding to council tax bills and encouraging the proliferation of different household bins19) British MEPs would be sacked
Every month, the European Parliament – hundreds of MEPs, their staff, translators and other officials, 10,000 people in all – moves from Brussels to Strasbourg, where it sits for just four days. This “travelling circus” is widely regarded as being hugely wasteful: the Conservative Party has estimated the cost at £130 million a year.20) Finally, we could have proper lightbulbs again
In possibly the most infamous EU instruction in recent years, traditional incandescent lightbulbs are restricted in favour of low-energy alternatives, which many people feel do not offer the same level of illumination. |
