EU - MORE KNOWNS THAN UNKNOWNS

Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defence Secretary,
observed at the time of the Iraq war that there are
things that we know and there are things that we
we don't know. So what are the knowns
and unknowns about Britain's EU membership
and how are events likely to unfold?

We know, for example, that in 1975 the British
people thought that they were voting for the free
movement of goods and services in a common
market. As we have seen, this was a fraudulent
prospectus. The EU's founding fathers obscured
their intention to create a federal Europe by
presenting it as a trading arrangement with
obvious economic benefits. They knew from
outset that this could never work without both
economic and political union. It was
surreptitiously planned that this would be a
gradual process, eventually arriving at a point
of no return.

The result of the deception can be seen in 
impoverishment and growing civil unrest on
the streets of southern Europe. Having
given up their original currencies, which
reflected the competitive state of their
economies, for the euro, these countries are
locked into a deeply flawed, one-size-fits-all
social experiment. The UK would be suffering
the same fate if Tony Blair had succeeded in
taking us into the single currency.

In Britain, we know that the tide of public
anger will, sooner or later, break the political
and economic mould imposed on millions
by an unelected and unaccountable EU
leadership. Growing exponentially, this is
a bureaucratic machine, which has become
the master, not the servant of the people.

It is inevitable that certain countries will
have to go through the painful process of
leaving the euro. They will become
competitive through a lower exchange
rate and growing their economies.Those
in northern Europe will develop a more
flexible relationship, against the changing
patterns of world trade.

The EU's approach seemingly to control
almost every aspect of its citizens' lives
reflects the features of a totalitarian regime.
Everthing from human rights and
immigration to employment law and health
and safety is dictated by Brussels. 70% of
all secondary legislation comes straight out
of the EU Commission on to the UK
government's statute book, without scrutiny,
or a vote.

Red tape, often gold-plated by civil servants,
has cost business some £700m over the last
two years and is seriously weakening its
ability to compete. The proposed
introduction of the so-called TOBIN tax on
financial transactions would be a devastating
blow to the City of London. It would undermine
its position as the world's leading financial
centre and result in further heavy job losses.

Where national referendums on EU
membership have been held the result has
not always to been the to the liking Jose Manuel
Barroso, President of the European Commission.
Where the vote has been negative, his response
has been "Let them carry on voting, until they
get it right". Herbert van Rompuy, President of
the European Council, appears similarly
contemptuous of the democratic process.

Taxpayers, especially in Germany and Britain -
the only net contributors to the EU - are
reminded that its accelerating budget has
not been signed off for eighteen years. And
while the majority of the EU's population
suffers, the bureaucrats certainly do not.
One eample, in particular, stands out.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the mono-
lingual, allegedly ineffectual, former CND
worker with a tendency to miss important
meetings, is an alarming case in point. The
EU High Represenataive for Foreign Affairs
and Security since 2009 will be paid £133,500
a year, 55% of her basic salary when her
five-year term ends next year, until 2017.

The transitional arrangement does not require
her to undertake any duties and her
compensation will attract a lower tax rate than
in the UK. In addition, she will be entitled to
a daily tax-free sum of £300 for sitting in the
House of Lords.

Lord Lawson of Blaby is right to advocate that
the UK should withdraw from the EU. He
believes that it would do so from a position of
relative strength. Nick Clegg's assertion that
3m jobs would be lost if Britain were to leave
the EU appears to be entirely without foundation.
The former Chancellor has said that "the relevant
economic context now is not Europe, but
globalisation. He "strongly suspects that there
would be a positive economic advantage in
Britain leaving the single market".

The UK has a £40bn trade deficit with the EU,
so what would be the logic of its members not
doing business with Britain? Here, Germany, which
shares many of our values, is a good example. For
every £100 Britain exports to Germany, it imports
£170 worth of goods and services. The Bundesbank
has stated that Anglo-German trade  rose to £153bn
in the first nine months of 2012. This makes the UK
Germany's key trading partner, heralding a special
relationship between Europe's two like-minded
northern powers. For both countries it signals a
lessening of trade links with EU and a developing
trend to embrace the wider world.

The UK sells more to the rest of the world than
it does to the EU. Last year, Britain's exports to
twenty-six EU countries decreased by 7.3%,
reflecting the eurozone crisis. Exports elsewhere
rose by 13.2% overall with those to China growing
by 26.3%. Emerging markets are the future.The
the largely insolvent countries of Europe,
with flat-lining economies and unsustainable
social spending, funded by debt, are the past.

It comes as no surprise that figures for the
analysis of the costs of Britain's membership of
the EU are difficult to come by.The last such
research was carried out by the Bruges Group in
2008. Then the cost was put at £65bn: £28bn for
business to comply with EU regulations, £17bn
of additional food costs, resulting from the
Common Agricultural Policy, £3.3bn - the value
of the catch lost when the Common Fisheries
Policy allowed other countries to fish in UK
territororial waters and £14.6bn gross, paid into
the EU budget and other EU funds (in 2011 this
had risen to £19bn). One fifth of this money
has either been borrowed from overseas' bond
holders, or produced electronically through
quantitative easing.

To return to Donald Rumsfeld's known and
unknowns, David Cameron has again promised
what he cannot deliver, an in-or-out referendum
on Britain's membership of the EU. He said that
proposed legislation in 2017 would be included
in the Queen's Speech, but issued a discreet
retraction because the Liberal Democrats would
not agree. Of course, all the indications are that
Mr Cameron will not be Prime Minister in four
years' time, so the question becomes rather
academic.

At the same time, the Prime Minister maintains
that he will succeed in achieving a substantial
repatriation of sovereign powers back to
Westminister. This seems unlikely, since all
twenty-six other EU members would have to
agree.

What appears likely is that Mr Cameron will
return from Europe with concessions that
amount to little more than the wholly
unacceptable status quo. Some believe that his
position on the EU is more in tune with his
political idol, Tony Blair, and question whether
he is in the right Party.     

 The main unknown about the EU, is how long
can its leaders defy the economic and political
laws of gravity. Will it implode, or proceed to
being a federal state with growing German
hegemony, as it  bears the cost of this
monstrous folly that is the EU?