BETTER OFF OUT

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2011 :: RMTnews 20 The ConDems massive programme of spending cuts will damage the fabric of a decent society, increase unemployment, slash demand and slow economic growth. Therefore it is more than time to ask why the sauce for the British goose isn`t sauce for the Euro gander. The damaging costs of belonging to the European Union are heavy and rising and we get little benefit from it. So why should the EU be exempt from the cuts forced on pensioners, beneficiaries, housing and the public services? The huge membership fee to belong to the Euro club has risen even higher thanks to Tony Blair`s daft decision to give away part of our rebate in return for cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy which won`t happen. Sterling`s devaluation and the 2.95 per cent increase in the EU budget – which Prime Minister David Cameron has just accepted – at a cost of £310 billion a year. These are just the budgetary costs, add to that the £2 billion a year we contribute to Europe`s satellite guidance system Galileo to replace what the United States now give us for free, and to other EU projects. Then there`s the £8 billion cost of the CAP which forces us to buy their high-priced food when we could get it cheaper elsewhere, the £6 million cost of the Common Fisheries Policy through losing our fish and the jobs that go with them to other member states. Finally there`s the cost of all the European regulations which pour out, many of them unnecessarily, which are variously estimated at between £20 and £40 billion. Now there is more to come as we pay our share of the costs of the European Parliament, plus the costs of the new global diplomatic service to duplicate Britain’s and to pay for the bullet-proof cars to protect EU diplomats from public affection in the countries they are sent to. Quite a total, say £40 billion a year, not quite as much as we lose to tax evasion and avoidance by the rich and the big corporations, but large enough to make all this year`s cuts and most of next year`s wholly unnecessary. What do we get in return? Supporters of EU membership reply that the benefits are so huge it`s impossible to list them. But look at the big ones. We are told we get access to a huge market. True, but that has only meant a larger and growing trade deficit as opposed to a surplus in trade with Europe before we went in 1973. There is no sign that we`ll be able to reverse it so great is the power and dominance of German exports. German production industry has been reorganised, massively invested and modernised while British industry has been closed down or allowed to slip into foreign control, losing a third of the big manufacturing firms, which powered our exports in the past. How about mobility of labour and capital? The main effect of this has been the cynical abuse of hundreds of thousands of East Europeans to drive down DVD: An RMT DVD film is available which exposes the EU’s privatisation drive, how it attacks workers’ rights and the increasingly undemocratic nature of the European Union itself. For a free copy e-mail bdenny@rmt.org.uk NO2EU-YES TO DEMOCRACY: RMT formed part of a temporary electoral coalition set up to stand in the 2009 Euro elections on a platform of decent public services, workers’ right and against racism and fascism see www.no2eu.com BETTER OFF OUT RMT parliamentary group member Austin Mitchell MP explains why he supports union policy agreed at RMT’s annual general meeting last year to withdraw from the European Union