Bill Cash in the Yorkshire Post writes: "ALTHOUGH I was appalled and astonished to hear that Treasury figures indicate that the cost of Britain's membership in the European Union have risen from £53 per UK household in 2004 to £260 from next year, the real truth is that the costs to the UK are much higher.
"They certainly outweigh any benefits. The real cost of EU membership for British taxpayers is 10 times higher – costing every person in the United Kingdom about £2,000 per year, according to the TaxPayers' Alliance. That is before we can even begin to assess the predicted 60 per cent rise next year.
"Every British voter pays, in food prices, consumer goods or services, a minimum of £2,000 per year – which makes the Treasury's £260 estimated cost of EU membership sound as pie in the sky as every other Government statistic that I have read recently.
"Do the Treasury figures, for example, include in their assessment the financial costs of damage done to small businesses every year by business regulation?
"The British electorate has been paying – as taxpayers – for our direct contributions to the EU.
"It has also been paying – as consumers – for the high prices and costs endured by UK business in complying with and administering EU regulations, EU administration costs and also higher food prices, which have resulted from implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy. The great European con-trick has to end.
"So, I see great political opportunity for the Labour Government. Given that on the Government's own terms EU membership costs will now rise from £4.1bn to £6.4bn next year, equating to a rise of almost 60 per cent, they should now come clean.
"The Cabinet must sit down at the table with the Treasury report on its agenda and say – we do not want to be part of this failed, uneconomic debt-ridden European political body, which has, with the passing of each European Treaty, taken almost complete legislative control over Westminster. Instead, we want a new deal.
"Of course, that is dependent on whether the Conservative Party decides to step up to the mark.
"It is a time for a new deal, beginning with a referendum which would first lead to the withdrawal of the instruments of ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
"In light of the Treasury's figures, coupled with attempts by the European Commission to force a re-run of the Irish referendum – on October 2 (through active meddling and propaganda), along with the false claims made by the Foreign Office, via Baroness Kinnock, that the Irish already have "legal guarantees" guaranteed by the UK Parliament – then there is good reason for renegotiation of the Treaties and our EU relationship.
"As I have written many times previously, a referendum is required on the Government's own terms, because the Treaty itself is a "merger" involving all the main European Treaties (from Rome to Nice) to create a Union with an over-arching single legal personality and a self-amending text.
"This always amounted to "substantial constitutional change", even "fundamental change" – so, on the Government's own political and legal terms, and now based on the Government's own financial assessment, it is compelled to re-examine our European relationship and seek a referendum in line with the wishes of the British electorate.
"A statement issued by a spokesman for the Treasury on the news that a 60 per cent increase in the costs of EU membership had been fully and openly discussed in Parliament, was simply wrong and false on every count. We had not discussed this in Parliament.
"In the Treasury statement, the Prime Minister also supposedly insists that it is right for us to share the burden of membership of the European Union with the new accession countries, but Gordon Brown must surely realise the European Union is a failed economic and political bloc.
"Britain and most of the member states have continued to burden themselves with deep problems of the new accession and pre-accession countries, without realising the consequences – as I said in the House of Commons, on June 16 – by supporting illiberal régimes in Croatia, Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia.
"Why should Britain pay more than £10bn in huge pre-accession fees before joining, and then massive uncountable subsidies once they are in, in order to support Eastern Europe's trade in cocaine and the sex trafficking of children and prostitutes?
"It is a scandal, but the national newspapers hardly mention it. It helps to explain the Treasury figures.
"Gordon Brown has sold out the country in the exceedingly short time he has been Prime Minister, so it will fall to a Conservative Government to deliver a new deal."
Thank you Mr Cash, for being one of the only politicans with integrity, that tells the truth regarding the EU.
Politicans should be prosecuted for treason and hung from lamp posts for they what they have done to the people of this country. Successive governments, this one more than most, are a stain on decent society.
I know first hand what that elitist, pernicious organisation the EU has done to ordinary working people. My husband and his fellow workers have lost wages in overtime because of the 48 working time directive that was implemented a few year ago, but we still have to pay the same exorbitant taxes and bills we receive, but on less money, there’s no help for us. We’re not privvy to the generous salaries & expenses that those in the disrespected houses of parliament receive. And they have the nerve to quote health and safety for this monstrous intrusion into what we and earn, it seems they want the plebs on the breadline while the elite rake it it, reminds me of old Stalins policies. They want everyone equal, as long as the elites are more equal than others. Harriet Harpicperson being one of the worst offenders.
I never thought I’d see the day when such a craven bunch of politicans just give our sovereignty, independence, freedom & privacy to foreign bureaucrats for self-interested means. Disgusting, arrogant, lying toerags that they are.
I am NOT an EU citizen and will NEVER be an EU citizen no matter the fine, imprisonment or whatever they threaten, I will NEVER refer to myself as an EU citizen.
To say I now hate the establishment in Brussels and the undemocratic establishment in this country is an understatement. I have no respect at all for the lying, deceitful, cheating, career obsessed things that sit in the commons (Mr Cash, excepted, a rare person indeed in politicans) they respesent everything I, and millions abhor.
What baffles me is why they are so keen to relegate themselves to caretakers of a once respected institution, because that’s all they’ll be, caretakers, albeit well paid ones, until their masters in Brusels replaces them with their own people. Then they’ll be redundant, this will be the only consolation, seeing the political establishment wiped out.
Another thing that angers me is their portrayal of the BNP (I’m not a supporter) as fascist, have they not looked at their own policies & taken a good look in the mirror. Pot & Kettle spring to mind.
I fear greatly for my children & grandchildren under the EU, they’ll end up more brainwashed then they are now, they’ll end up being turned into the EU youth brigade.
I curse Ted Heath, and those that carried on from him. I hope he never rests in peace for what he started with his lies. And those carrying on his lies are even more rotten.
The media appear to be mere stooges for the government and EU, but they’ll find out to their cost when the Lisbon Treaty is implemented that the EU will take over the media, it’ll end up like the old USSR version, state (Brussels) managed.
I don’t hold out much hope that the Tories under Camerboy will be any different, lies & deceit seem inherent in politicans where the EU is concerned. WHY, that is the question, if it’s such a good, democratic organisation why LIE, why not have a referendum, why be decitful?
Once again thank you for your honesty Mr Cash, it’s just a shame you couldn’t get a campaign going with the media on your side.
OUT NOW.