A Conservative MEP speaks the truth about Europe - so why does he not join UKIP? It is also time that MPs from all parties who are opposed to the steady but stealthy encroachment of the EU's powers as it gradually emerges as a 'United States of Europe' examine their consciences and decide whether their first loyalty is to their party or to their country.

Monday, 28th December 2009.

We are now officially a 'State' of this Union:

 
Tory MEP and Daily Telegraph columnist Dan Hannan recently listed list 10 reasons why the UK would be better off out of the European Union.

When David Cameron retreated from his promise of a referendum on Lisbon, he said he would try to get back some of the EU's powers, but ended with the words "while remaining, of course, a member of the European Union."

Here's why he's wrong:

 
1. Since we joined the EEC in 1973, we have been in surplus with every continent in the world except Europe. Over those 27 years, we have run a trade deficit with the other EU member states that averages out at £30 million per day.

2. In 2010 our gross contribution to the EU budget will be £14 billion. To put this figure in context, all the reductions announced by George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference would, collectively, save £7 billion a year across the whole of government spending.

3. On the European Commission’s own figures, the annual costs of EU regulation outweigh the advantages of the single market by €600 to €180 billion.

 
4. The Common Agricultural Policy costs every family £1200 a year in higher food bills.

 
5. Outside the Common Fisheries Policy, Britain could reassert control over its waters out to 200 miles or the median line, which would take in around 65 per cent of North Sea stocks.

 
6. Successive British governments have refused to say what proportion of domestic laws come from Brussels, but a thorough analysis by the German Federal Justice Ministry showed that 84 per cent of the legislation in that country came from the EU.

7. Outside the EU, Britain would be free to negotiate much more liberal trade agreements with third countries than is possible under the Common External Tariff.

 
8. The countries with the highest GDP per capita in Europe are Norway and Switzerland. Both export more, proportionately, to the EU, than Britain does.

 
9. Outside the EU, Britain could be a deregulated, competitive, offshore haven.

 
10. Oh, and we’d be a democracy again.