Friday 21 November 2008

EU Costs the UK £106k Per Minute


How about we help the economy by saving £55.8bn per year?

The European Union is costing Britain a staggering £106,000 a minute, a think-tank has revealed.

As the UK teeters on the brink of what experts predict will be the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Government has surrendered £55.8billion to Brussels this year.

That is equivalent to paying a whopping £900 for every man, woman and child in the country.


And it's not just the Government losing money hand over fist.

... red tape imposed by the EU has cost British business about £28billion, according to statistics calculated by the European Commission's vice-chairman Günter Verheugen.


That's a hefty wedge of cash, Ministers must be extremely concerned ... or perhaps not.

Ministers gave up £7billion of the UK’s EU budget rebate on the grounds that the farming system would be reformed.

But this did not happen - a failure Environment Secretary Hilary Benn conceded is a 'missed opportunity'.


The loss of £7bn for no benefit to the country whatsoever is just a 'missed opportunity'? How very blasé.

The BBC don't seem too worried about this massive cash leak either. The story doesn't appear on their web-site. Unless it's squirrelled away where no-one will reasonably be able to find it, that is.




4 comments:

AloneMan said...

Hey, don't worry, because we know where the money goes and the EU's accounts are fully audi.....oh, hang on.

Anonymous said...

The only reason this is so shocking is because it isn't true. The report is written entirely by a UKIP MEP (in case you're under the impression that a team of economists came to this conclusion) and plucks figures out of thin air.

He uses nonsensical sources (a speech by the ex-Dutch foreign minister is the source for 50% of the £56bn figure), equates regulation with over-regulation, intentionally inflates the figures and arrives at absurd conclusions. None of this is credible, it's just a nonsensical attempt at propaganda and the extent to which reasonable people (eurosceptics or not) have accepted this as true simply because it came in a pdf file is incredibly worrying.

Anonymous said...

"The BBC don't seem too worried about this massive cash leak either. The story doesn't appear on their web-site. Unless it's squirrelled away where no-one will reasonably be able to find it, that is."

That's because it isn't a story. The EU doesn't cost us £56bn a year and the Bruges Group release press releases like this one all the time. They're essentially a propaganda wing for UKIP and the likes of Norman Tebbit.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Figures calculated by Günter Verheugen are not true and a quote by Hilary Benn is also not true you say David?

OK. I'll hear you. So what about the lies the EU tells on a regular basis?

There's a big fat one about being inclusive for a start. The only way you get to be included in EU decision-making is if you agree with the EU.

A few years ago I might have agreed with you, but not now. They're a bunch of self-serving bastards who lie quite a lot.

If this really is a pack of lies, I'm glad I helped spread the lies further. It's not like such lies (some from the EU) haven't helped fuck up the lives of people like me, now is it?

Reap as ye shall sow.