EU-Mythbusting

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Given the amount of anti-EU rubbish being spouted around here these days, it's obviously time to fact check some of the more absurd claims we often hear about Europe.

So here goes....

Myth: 80% of our laws are created in Europe

Fact: The figure is around 15%.

Source: House of Commons -
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP10-62

Myth: Complying with European legislation and bureaucracy is a huge and expensive burden on British Business, and EU compliance is as much as 70% of regulatory costs for UK business.

Fact: By value, EU legislation was only responsible for about 0.1% (£1.9m) of regulatory net costs in 2007/8 and virtually all business burdening regulatory activity can be attributed to Whitehall.

Source. British Chambers of Commerce - http://www.britishchambers.org.uk/assets/downloads/policy_reports/BCC_report_Worlds_Apart.pdf

Myth: Leaving the EU will get us out of the European Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights.

Fact: No it won't. The EHCR is a Council of Europe organisation, completely unrelated to the EU. There are 47 members of the COE, and just 27 in the EU.

Source- Council of Europe - http://www.conventions.coe.int/

Myth: British Business would be better off outside of the EU. It would provide more opportunity for global trade. If we can't leave, we should call for wholesale renegotiation of our terms of membership.

Fact: Such a move is almost universally warned against by leading British businesses. In a letter to the Financial Times, the heads of some of our biggest companies including Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group, Chris Gibson-Smith, chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Sir Roger Carr, CBI president, Lord Davies of Corsair Capital, Gerry Grimstone of TheCityUK, Jan du Plessis of Rio Tinto, Sir Michael Rake of BT, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP and Malcolm Sweeting of Clifford Chance have specifically warned against leaving the EU or even wholesale renegotiation of terms.

Source: Financial Times - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ac0feb98-59b9-11e2-88a1-00144feab49a.html#axzz2Hi2KMUCa

Myth: Leaving the EU would improve our international relations with key allies such as the USA.

Fact: No it wouldn't. "President Barack Obama’s administration gave Britain a stark warning yesterday against moves to quit the EU. Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary for European affairs, said in London that pulling out could hurt the trans-Atlantic “special relationship”. He said it was in America’s interests to see “a strong British voice in the EU” and added: “We welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it."

Source: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/369773/US-warning-to-David-Cameron-Don-t-try-to-quit-the-EU

Myth: It costs the UK £6Bn a year net to stay in the EU, so obviously we'd be better off out and not paying those fees.

Fact: This amount pales into insignificance by comparison to the financial benefits of staying in. EU GDP was raised by 2.2 per cent (€233 billion) and 2.75 million jobs were created between the introduction of the single market in 1992 and 2006. For the UK, that increase in GDP would have been around £25 billion. The Government’s Department of Business, Innovation & Skills estimates that EU Member States trade twice as much with each other as a result of the single market – which they estimate has meant that increased trade within the EU since the 1980s could have been worth around six per cent higher income per capita in the UK.

Source - BISC and EU http://www.euromove.org.uk/index.php?id=15296

I'm sure there will be more as we go.

zagubov

All true.

I'd raise the point though that many of the benefits and fewer of the costs may arise by staying in the EEA but shifting to the EFTA side of it. Not sure I'd promote such a move and not sure it's worth the hassle. But if anybody ever turned round and said that any political choices taken in the British Isles would lead to loss of EU citizenship for any current EU members (Yeah right!)......:D

It would be polite to our fellow EU members if we acted worried even though we're not.

Moby

I see Michael Heseltine has now added his voice. I just hope Cameron reins in th rhetoric next week and doesn't pander to the loony headbangers in his own party for party political reasons. Its the country as a whole that will suffer in the long term if we damage our most important international relationships with ill thought out anti Euorope statements!

Fella

You don't understand Hamish, when we say we want to get out of Europe we actually mean out of it. I.e. issue everyone with an oar & paddle like mad. Somewhere near the Caribbean would be nice.

chris_m

Fella wrote: »

I.e. issue everyone with an oar & paddle like mad. Somewhere near the Caribbean would be nice.

Why bother? Give global warming a few more years and we'll have a Caribbean climate anyway :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Graham_Devon

Thanks Hamish.

After reading your myth busting, I think I'd still like a vote on in or out.... sorry

The last myth busted for example. It looks at one single side of the coin. It doesn't look at, for instance, where we lose out to the EU....just "this is what it costs, this is what we get back".

What if we didn't pay anything into the EU and could do our own thing? ow much could we get back then?

It's OK mythbusting, but it's all just saying "this is what the situation is now". It doesn't delve into what it could be.

chewmylegoff

Seems unlikely that EU legislation imposes only 0.1% of regulatory since pretty much every single financial regulation comes from the EU. Maybe in 2007/8 that figure was accurate but MiFID wasn't introduced until Nov 2007 and that was just the start.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

After reading your myth busting, I think I'd still like a vote on in or out.... sorry

That's quite all right Graham.

You can wish for anything you like. We don't mind at all.;)

The last myth busted for example. It looks at one single side of the coin. It doesn't look at, for instance, where we lose out to the EU....just "this is what it costs, this is what we get back".

Could you list some of these things that we "lose out to the EU"?

What if we didn't pay anything into the EU and could do our own thing? ow much could we get back then?

The most recent study on it indicates that leaving the EU would result in a permanent reduction of 2.5% of GDP over where it would be if we stay in.

It's OK mythbusting, but it's all just saying "this is what the situation is now". It doesn't delve into what it could be.

Delve away.

Graham_Devon

Well how about the fact that the EU commisions own figures suggest the annual cost of EU regulation outweight the advantages of the single market by by 180bn euros?

How about the fact that the common agricultural policy costs each family in the UK around £1,200 extra each year in higher food bills?

How about the fact that if we left the EU, we would be free to control over 200 miles more of our own fish stocks?

How about the fact that both Norway and Switzerland export more (proportionally) to the EU than we do? How does that stand with all the scare tactics of "oh, we'll never ever hit EU legislation again" (which is amusing in itself anyway, as on one hand the pro EU suggest there isn't much legislation, on the other, they cry over how we'll never meet it and it will cost so much more).

I won't touch on immigration, because I'd just be written off as a racist so you can avoit it

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well how about the fact that the EU commisions own figures suggest the annual cost of EU regulation outweight the advantages of the single market by by 180bn euros?

How about the fact that the common agricultural policy costs each family in the UK around £1,200 extra each year in higher food bills?

How about the fact that if we left the EU, we would be free to control over 200 miles more of our own fish stocks?

How about the fact that both Norway and Switzerland export more (proportionally) to the EU than we do? How does that stand with all the scare tactics of "oh, we'll never ever hit EU legislation again" (which is amusing in itself anyway, as on one hand the pro EU suggest there isn't much legislation, on the other, they cry over how we'll never meet it and it will cost so much more).

I'd be fascinated to see some links to sources for the above.

I won't touch on immigration, because I'd just be written off as a racist so you can avoit it

Immigration is a benefit, we need more of it not less.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Immigration is a benefit, we need more of it not less.

Says you, who wants house prices to rise.

But this (and if parliament itself is not a good enough source for you I don't know what is) suggests otherwise...

Immigration has become highly significant to the UK economy: immigrants comprise 12% of the total workforce—and a much higher proportion in London.

However, we have found no evidence for the argument, made by the Government, business and many others, that net immigration—immigration minus emigration— generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population.

Overall GDP, which the Government has persistently emphasised, is an irrelevant and misleading criterion for assessing the economic impacts of immigration on the UK. The total size of an economy is not an index of prosperity. The focus of analysis should rather be on the effects of immigration on income per head of the resident population. Both theory and the available empirical evidence indicate that these effects are small, especially in the long run when the economy fully adjusts to the increased supply of labour. In the long run, the main economic effect of immigration is to enlarge the economy, with relatively small costs and benefits for the incomes of the resident population.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf

Misleading? And Hamish sailing ther ship? Well....who'd have thunk it.

And you'll love this, which totally debunks your main arguments....

Arguments in favour of high immigration to defuse the “pensions time bomb” do not stand up to scrutiny as they are based on the unreasonable assumption of a static retirement age as people live longer and ignore the fact that, in time, immigrants too will grow old and draw pensions. Increasing the retirement age, as
the Government has done, is the only viable approach to resolving this issue.

You aint gonna like that document much Hamish. But there is PLENTY within it's 84 pages for you to digest. Most of which debunks every single one of your claims.