Mr Hughes –Rather than be fixated with the number 17, I’m trying to point out to you that ‘Europe’ and the ‘EU’ are not one and the same – unless you’re seriously suggesting Europe is only 17 years old and a country like Switzerland isn’t European.Thanks for the suggestion of reading the papers. I’ll pass though, if you don’t mind. I hope you’ll forgive me for instead relying on the experience of working for the governments in Westminster and Brussels, weekly briefings with the Secretary of State for X and the odd face-to-face with the EU Commissioner for Y. As for “the new global economy and how we are so interlinked with trade and the importance of the economic zones”, little things like global free trade agreements and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) already have that stuff covered (Switzerland’s an EFTA member, for example, and has a larger proportion of its trade with the EU than the UK does).So, if it’s trade with our European partners that you want, EFTA will suffice. Failing that, world trade agreements mean countries like Mexico now have EU trade concessions similar to those granted the UK when we originally joined the Common Market. So, no need for the EU to help UK trade – cheaper, less intrusive mechanisms are already in place......According to the EU’s own figures, for example, the Single Market benefits the economies of the EU to the tune of an extra €164.5 billion a year. Unfortunately, the EU also estimates the cost of this as being around €600 billion a year - about 12% of EU GDP.So, the 27 EU countries spend €600 billion on extra regulation in order to claw back a shade under €165 billion in extra trade.These numbers don’t add up. Why? Because current EU spending is “broadly consistent with the public choice theory that sees regulation as a mechanism to create rents for politicians and the firms they support."If you need a translation of EU-speak, that means EU taxpayers fork out €435 billion over the odds each year to help keep the political piggies in the trough – an extra £850 every year for every man, woman and child in the EU. By moving into EFTA then, countries like the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Denmark could save a significant proportion of annual GDP, while still maintaining global and EU trade status.-------P.S. I’m half-Irish too and married to a brown-skinned Arab. We chose German nationality for our children. As someone who feels more ‘European’ than British, the EU’s corrupt undermining of little things like parliamentary sovereignty, common law and democratic accountability are deeply disturbing. The system’s rotten, deeply corrupt and beyond reform.P.P.S. It’s only called the ‘European Union’, by the way, because the leaders of the UK, France and Germany were nervous their citizens wouldn’t like original suggestion – the “Provisional European Government” – as it might give the game away.And that was back in 1973.
Fraser Pearce ● 6206d