Disgusted by EU 'propoganda' (From Andover Advertiser)

Disgusted by EU 'propoganda'

4:08pm Thursday 24th January 2013 in Letters

THERE appears to be an intensified national pro-EU campaign going on up and down the British Isles, even enlisting American aid, on the TV and in the newspapers, both national and local, to con the British public.

It reminds me of when I was conned into supporting and canvassing for Great Britain to enter the Common Market, so it’s little wonder that when I read Catherine Bearder MEP’s letter of 4 January, it was with a mixture of dismay and disgust.

Dismay as I feel that if she has had any relatives that, along with my father and his comrades, who died fighting for this country they would be turning in their graves at her actions.

Disgust at the blatant misleading pro-EU propaganda and outright lies. She obviously chooses to ignore the fact that we have a European trade deficit (we buy more from the EU than they buy from us). Of the fresh fish we get in our fishmonger’s, 75% is bought from EU countries like France, Spain and Portugal, yet they are caught in our national waters.

The true costs of our membership in the EU as a percentage of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) for 2011 was 1% of the GDP £15 billion (the figure changes from year to year and so the total therefore needs publication on an annual basis).

In 2001 the UK had 26.3m households, the EU cost to the average household was more than £5,000 per year.

This £5,000 includes all the additional costs of EU membership such as costs of regulation, resource misallocation, waste, fraud and corruption, the cost of lost jobs, and the cost of the contingent liabilities for which provision should have been made.

She ignores the fact that because of EU membership the average British household pays higher taxes, higher food bills, pays more for electricity, water and an array of other items.

She also fails to mention that British workers are less likely to find employment in their own country because the labour market is open to immigration from the rest of the EU, resulting in a continuous immigrant flow as they know that not only will they be able to claim £250 benefits a week on arrival but benefits for the children they left behind at home, and because employment prospects are reduced by unnecessary restrictions and regulations forced on us by the EU.

Moreover, in the last 15 to 20 years the growth of personal incomes has been held back by the directives and regulations in the so-called “acquis communautaire”.

Thousands of small businesses no longer exist as they cannot meet the costs of complying with the acquis.

It was announced yesterday that that the cost of every single Euro MEP is £1.79m each and rising.

I could go on, but I will end by asking your readers who do these so-called educated people who are elected to safeguard this country and its people’s interests act like idiots?

Could it be that somewhere there is personal gain for them?

Peter Sumner, Coachways, Andover